Hong Kong Public Housing: An Architectural and Policy History

Hong Kong Public Housing provides the first comprehensive history of one of the most dramatic episodes in the global history of the modern built environment: the vast public housing programme sponsored by successive Hong Kong governments from the 1950s, in a quest to build up the territory into a lasting peoples home. And unlike many of its counterparts elsewhere, this is a programme still ongoing today a case of history in progress as Hong Kong now boasts one of the worlds longest-lasting public housing programmes. During that time, it has been not just a mirror of the cultural and economic values of Hong Kong society but also a reflection of more nebulous, fast-changing perceptions of identity and a testament to the community-building achievements of Hongkongers over these years.

This authoritative study combines architectural history with the broader social, political, and cultural aspects of housing production particularly the geo-political issues of sovereignty and decolonisation that uniquely, and fundamentally, structured the trajectory of Hong Kong public housing and territory development. Exploring the relationship between built form, ideology, and administrative governance, it shows how massive state intervention interacted at times uneasily with Hong Kongs dominant laissez-faire ethos, to help maintain the legitimacy of successive administrations during an era of auto-decolonisation, and support an interstitial society suspended between two sovereignties. Following more recent political changes, Hong Kongs public housing heritage has also become a focus of nostalgic community pride a monumental achievement of home building which this book documents and celebrates for posterity.