Urban China talks: Production of Space in a Speculative City

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Building Colonial Hong Kong: 
The Production of Space in a Speculative City

By Cecilia L. Chu, Associate Professor in Architecture, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

This talk will explore three central aspects of urban development in colonial Hong Kong: the advent of modern planning closely entwined with early British segregation policies; the role of property investment in the shaping of building forms; and the emergence of a distinct urban milieu in which different constituencies sought to claim a stake in a burgeoning colonial economy through housing speculation. Two historical periods will be revisited: the mid-1890s, which witnessed the disastrous plague outbreak that prompted the territory’s first large-scale urban renewal project, and the early 1920s, when the opening of New Kowloon and intensified land speculation led to a series of ambitious planning schemes along racial lines. The intersections of economic interests and the politics of race have contributed to the forms and norms of the city and an evolving sense of local identity. Notably, these discourses and policies have remained powerful frameworks for urban transformation in the post-colonial present.

Cecilia L. Chu is an Associate Professor and Director of the MPhil-PhD Programme in the School of Architecture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Trained as an urban historian with a background in design and conservation, her works focus on the social and cultural processes that shape the forms of built environments and their impacts on local communities. She is the author of the award-winning book, Building Colonial Hong Kong: Speculative Development and Segregation in the City, which received the 2023 Best Book in Non-North American Urban History Award from the Urban History Association and the 2024 International Planning History Society Book Prize. Her other book publications include The Speculative City: Emergent Forms and Norms of the Built Environment (2022) and Hong Kong Built Heritage (forthcoming 2025).