(n)omantic city

non-romantic city = (n)omantic city

‘where is the romance in Hong Kong?’ I’m sure most of us struggle to answer this question. There are no romantic places in Hong Kong. It almost feels like that HK is a cold-hearted place, a high density city with an impression of coldness. I would like to address this issue in different scales; from large to small. Is it the structure/ current top-down system of the city that kills the romance? Are urbanization and modernization disregarding these romantic accents of the city? Is it the material? Traditional materials like stone, wood, hand crafted iron gives us a sense of romance, whilst new artificial materials like concrete and glass are rather cruel and brutal. Is it the lack of public spaces? When comparing to other cities’public square, large plaza, parks, such as London, New York, Paris, Hong Kong’s public spaces are mostly non-utilized, inactivated and unoccupied. What can be done to reinvent, re-introduce the romance back to the cities of Hong Kong.

Jacky Chan