Description
This book declares the existing Kowloon as a "cultural district" already in formation, constituting a parallel proposal to Hong Kong's West Kowloon Cultural District project. In a three-fold approach comprised of the Cabinet of Curiosities, Archives, and Retrievals, it documents indigenous practices and spaces, reformulates them through architectural proposals, and links them to a broader context through reflection in essays.
About the Author
Esther Lorenz: Assistant Professor at the School of Architecture, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. She is a registered architect with education from TU Graz and TU Delft, and she has practiced urban design and architecture in the Netherlands, Australia and Austria. In her research work and teaching she investigates cultural issues in regard to contemporary cities and architecture with a focus on socio-cultural sustainability, space perception, and the intersection between media and architecture. She has been invited lecturer and guest critic at academic institutions internationally, and she has exhibited in the Hong Kong - Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale in 2007 and 2009, and at the 11th Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2008.
Shiqiao Li: Weedon Professor in Asian Architecture at the University of Virginia. He is an internationally recognized scholar whose research is focused on understanding emergent conditions in Chinese cities by contextualizing them in traditional discourses of modernity and architecture in their Western and Asian manifestations. He received his BA from Tsinghua University in Beijing and his PhD from the AA School of Architecture and Birkbeck College, University of London. He practiced in Hong Kong from 1995 to 2000, and was co-founder and consultant of BHSL Design from 2002 to 2007. He taught at the AA School of Architecture at the National University of Singapore, and at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His selected publications include Architecture and Modern Thought (Xiandai sixiang zhong de jianzhu) (Beijing: China WaterPower Press, 2009) and Power and Virtue: Architecture and Intellectual Change in England 1660-1730 (London and New York: Routledge, 2007).
