Shenzhen/Hong Kong: Enclaves, Edges, and Experiments
Channel: Columbia GSAPP
Date: 2017-05-09

Jonathan Bach and Joshua Bolchover in conversation with Adam Frampton and Ou Ning on the occasion of the publication of: Learning from Shenzhen: China’s Post-Mao Experiment from Special Zone to Model City (edited by Mary Ann O’Donnell, Winnie Wong, & Jonathan Bach) and Border Ecologies: Hong Kong’s Mainland Frontier (edited by Joshua Bolchover & Peter Hasdell).

Shenzhen—the special economic zone turned metropolis with over 20 million inhabitants—is a product of spatial exception. Once defined by its borders south to Hong Kong and north to the rest of the mainland, today the function and form of borders is changing, and with it notions of the urban and rural. This special double book talk explores how borders function as buffers, eco-systems, and sites for the production of value and values. It looks at the “Frontier Closed Area” along the Hong Kong-Shenzhen colonial-era border, at urban villages in Shenzhen, and the liminal spaces that create the city. Drawing from ethnography, urban ecology, design, architecture, and cultural history, the two books under discussion explore the spatial and temporal intricacies of the contemporary city.


Organized by Columbia GSAPP.