Who Wins and Who Loses in the Production of Cultural Iconic Architecture?

Author: Inge Goudsmit (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Year: 2022 (conference paper, "Metropolization and the Right to the City")
Source type: article (conference paper)
Raw file: raw/articles/goudsmit-2022-who-wins-who-loses-iconic.md

Summary

Goudsmit turns from the celebratory/neoliberal-entrepreneurialist reading of iconic architecture to ask who wins and who loses in its production. Using Hong Kong, she shows that most public culture funding goes to the West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD) megaproject in the urban centre, while the new towns (housing ~half the population) — especially later generations — lack almost any cultural infrastructure. Against the government's "self-contained new towns" claims, she argues (via Kaika and Castoriadis) that public cultural buildings, embedded in social life, are essential to instituting an "urban imaginary" and collective identity; their absence is itself a question of the right to the city.

Key Claims

• Unequal production of iconic culture: "almost the entire cultural budget is spent on the WKCD, a cultural megaproject along the waterfront in the urban centre," while third-generation new towns (Tin Shui Wai, Tseung Kwan O) have no cultural infrastructure despite populations comparable to earlier generations. WKCD cost escalated from an initial HK$21.6b endowment to ~HK$70b by 2020.
• Two senses of "culture": the government treats culture as "high" culture (the WKCD's world-class venues); the paper also highlights "local culture," which "is often overseen" — markets, gathering, performance, worship.
• Iconic architecture and the urban imaginary: following Sklair, iconic = "a combination of fame and symbolic or aesthetic significance"; following Kaika (and Castoriadis), architecture can function as an "urban totem," an exemplifier of collective values and an "urban imaginary" — even a "radical imaginary" projecting a desired future image.
• Public icon vs. "autistic" icon: "to become a truly public icon, rather than an 'autistic' icon, a building needs to be embedded in social and cultural urban life, engage with the city around it, enhance the urban commons and inspire civic pride" (Kaika). Community icons "function as magnets of sociability ... and repositories of shared memory" — a counterbalance to monumental global icons.
• The case of Tung Chung: no civic cultural centre in the "most central location" (occupied by a private mall); public facilities are non-distinct, far from public housing, on the east side (west side = ~40,000 low-income residents, half the town). Residents report a lack of places "to create memories": "I grew up in Tung Chung, but I have barely any memories to places there."
• Right to the city: the absence of cultural/public life in new towns should "also be considered as a right to the city"; new towns should be self-contained "not only in a socio-economic sense but also in the provision of public cultural life."

Connections

Concepts: Urban Imaginary · Right to the City · Iconic Architecture · Star Architecture · Gentrification · Neoliberal Metropolis · The Commons
Authors: Inge Goudsmit · Maria Kaika
Debates: Spectacle vs. Function
Related source notes: The Architecture of the City (Bismarck)

Direct Quotes

"[T]o become a truly public icon, rather than an 'autistic' icon, a building needs to be embedded in social and cultural urban life, engage with the city around it, enhance the urban commons and inspire civic pride." (on Kaika)

"[N]ot only is new housing necessary, but a new community needs to be built."

"We need places to create memories. I grew up in Tung Chung, but I have barely any memories to places there." (resident interview, as quoted)

Open Questions

• Does a redistributive demand for cultural infrastructure in the new towns offer a concrete "right to the city," or does it risk being absorbed into the same spectacular/iconic logic it critiques?