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Mall City: Hong Kong’s Dreamworlds of Consumption
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About Mall City: Hong Kong’s Dreamworlds Of Consumption
Product Description A deep dive into the density of Hong Kong - from megastructures to mall skyscrapers to "expresscalators" - and how it points to a new way of urban living Hong Kong is the twenty-first-century paradigmatic capital of consumerism. Of all places, it has the densest and tallest concentration of malls, reaching tens of stories. Hong Kong's malls are also the most visited, sandwiched between subways and skyscrapers. These mall complexes have become cities in and of themselves, accommodating tens of thousands of people who live, work, and play within a single structure. Mall City features Hong Kong as a unique rendering of an advanced consumer society. Retail space has come a long way since the nineteenth-century covered passages of Paris, which once awed the bourgeoisie with glass roofs and gaslights. It has morphed from the arcade to the department store, and from the mall into the "mall city"―where "expresscalators" crisscross mesmerizing atriums. Highlighting the effects of this development in Hong Kong, this book raises questions about architecture, city planning, culture, and urban life. Contributors include Carolyn Cartier, Cecilia Chu, Stan Lai, Gordon Matthews, Adam Nowek, David Grahame Shane, Barrie Shelton, and Jonathan Solomon. Review "This book will delight specialist scholars as well as current and future town planners, who would find in it matters for reflection and comparison on the evolution of key elements in the urban development of Hong Kong and beyond. Those interested more in Hong Kong and China than in the making of cities will find in the book keys to understanding the city spaces and sociabilities associated with them and to examining a model that is a major source of inspiration for urban development in mainland China." - China Perspectives "You can use design techniques in order to get people into your building instead of outside, and once they are in, you can make it inviting enough for them to go up... Mall City is a great book for those who want to get lost in the shopping meccas of a fascinating world city, without actually getting lost." - Skyscraper Magazine "Hong Kong has already proven a model for urban development in China and might prove a model for elsewhere... Mall City is a book of considerably more general interest than its apparently academic origins and purpose would indicate." - Asian Review of Books "At the nexus of density, humidity, topography, and shopping, Hong Kong has spawned more malls per square mile than any place on earth. This fantastic book decodes and graphically depicts an environment both apart and ubiquitous; a convulsive form of public space in a liquid territory where intensely contested politics, commerce, and sociability weirdly merge like no other city." - Michael Sorkin, Distinguished Professor of Architecture of the City University of New York "Stefan Al has again produced a book that provides a sharp lens on radically new urban forms that are emerging in China. While his previous books, Villages in the City and Factory Towns of South China introduced the site of production and housing for the migrant labor of the Pearl River Delta, here we enter the phantasmagoria of the enormous interconnected free-trade shopping zone of the Hong Kong Special Administration. Mall City dissects the basic unit of this climate-controlled consumer landscape-the mall. This beautifully illustrated book is a must-read for those who wish to understand the future of public space in high-density cities."-Brian McGrath, Professor of Urban Design and Dean of Constructed Environments, Parsons School of Design "Hong Kong may be packed with the most shopping malls per square kilometer in the world, but Mall City is packed with the most drawings, information, and fascinating mall facts. The book dissects, categorizes, and displays all kinds of intriguing data on the city-state's shopping complexes and culture. Its richly layered analysis perfectly matches Hong Kong's multi
