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香港風格

By 胡恩威

(118)

| Paperback | 9789889821500

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Book Description

擠迫是香港的既有優勢。

我們的複雜、擁擠、曖昧、不協調、半唐番……吸引了幾許國際目光。

混雜中，我們醞釀了獨特的建築、電影、音樂、文學、小說、設計、漫畫、茶餐廳、砵仔糕、油炸鬼 ……並成為了香港學派。

文化評論人胡恩威，這次透過文字來閱讀城市。

在新書《香港風格》中，看透了香港，在這石屎森林裡，尋找美學和夢魘。

從老區的風味到新建築的霸氣、從雲石建築到茶餐廳的卡位、拉閘、紙皮石，還有城中公共空間的鬧劇、政府政策的謬誤、香港風格的承傳與實驗，而不斷破舊立新的氣氛下，不知不覺間，社區和鄉村都遺失在這城市裡。

2 Reviews

3 people find this helpful

Noble effort

Besides the pretty picture books (that are devoid of any meaningful content) published by Page One, there is a dearth of books discussing the artistic / architectural style of Hong Kkong. Woo's effort in filling this void is admirable, which drove me to purchase this book. Unfortunately, I find this ... (continue)

Besides the pretty picture books (that are devoid of any meaningful content) published by Page One, there is a dearth of books discussing the artistic / architectural style of Hong Kkong. Woo's effort in filling this void is admirable, which drove me to purchase this book. Unfortunately, I find this haphazardly organized book far too biased for my taste and therefore uninspiring.
While I agree with many of his views, such as that HK people's creativity in response to the tight living space is under-appreciated, I find his tendency to label everything "mass-created" good and "government mandated" evil rather annoying. More than half the book is dedicated to criticizing (not critiquing) the government. Inexplicably, or extremely subjectively, half of it blames the government for over-interference while the rest blames it for lack of oversight.
For example, his discussion of the problems of the high land price policy is often correct (albeit cliched), but simultaneously he ignore the logical outcome of HK's high population density, e.g. the need to cram more students into a school (he used the HKU, DBS, Maryknoll, and a number of international schools as examples of good design, but forgot to mention that they were all built in the last century when land was still aplenty). His blind affinity for "the people's style" also led to ignorance over the peril of unfettered development, e.g. structurally unsound balconies or roadside hawkers with pots of boiling oil.
Ultimately, Woo's discourse reflects the sentiments of a stereotypical "artist": general discontentment, appreciation of organic style, and ignorance of practical (read monetary) problems. I absolutely agree with him that HK's style deserves far more recognition, so it is unfortunate that he was not able to deliver a more coherent and valid book on such a worthy topic.
The photographs in this book, on the other hand, are superb.

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s tsui said on Jul 2, 2008 | 1 feedback