Public figures : town hall for the new interior

Abstract

The thesis examines the formal figuration of public space for a new agonistic public sphere within the contemporary condition of the late capitalist city where the space of massive interiors is a given. In 2047, Hong Kong may very well see the end of the "One Party, Two Systems" set out after the return to China at the end of the British lease. With the increasing decline in the city-state's autonomy, Hong Kong's citizens are becoming increasingly aware of its struggles for democracy. At the same time, Hong Kong is transitioning towards an economy driven by retail and real estate powered by a new private public regime of supplying mobility through its integrated rail property regime. This new formula for urbanization generates generic forms of residential towers upon interconnected retail podiums, replacing the street with controlled spaces of efficient consumption. In these new towns, public life exists within these interiors. The civic centers and town hall plazas of the late modernist era in Hong Kong's new towns are no longer relevant in constituting the political public. The cuter, more comfortable, and more fragmented leisure gardens and al fresco patios of privately owned public spaces can no longer hold an antagonistic and political public imagination. The thesis proposes a series of monumental civic spaces as a new threshold to the interior across the new towns along parallel to the border of Mainland China and Hong Kong. It is a new town hall that needs to imagine a new form of agonistic public figures that can hold new formats for the political.