Short Cuts: Alternative Infrastructures in Hong Kong and Chicago
In Hong Kong, a network of pedestrian passages connects public and private space in one of the densest cities in the world across a challenging topography. This three-dimensional maze connects train stations, hotels, office towers, and housing estates across boundaries of class and culture; forming an alternative to the colonial logics under which it was founded and governed for most of its history, and grounds for discourse over its political future. In Chicago, the city’s Pedway links residential and commercial buildings to transportation facilities underneath the city’s downtown core. Offering the possibility of movement outside of Chicago’s famous grid, it creates opportunities, like getting lost, that work against the city’s own founding logics of modernity and exchange. As “short-cuts,” both of these networks share a role in providing escapes from their city’s primary structures and organizing narratives; showing that in alternative space, alternative cultures can thrive.
Video shot by Nathan Walker and edited by Morgan Jackson of Lucid Creative Agency.
Thanks to the Chicago Architecture Center for hosting the event.
Illustration from Cities Without Ground (ORO, 2012). © Jonathan Solomon.
