Laurent Gutierrez Bücher

Picking up where HK LAB left off, HK LAB 2 brings together artist projects and a number of theoretical and critical viewpoints on Hong Kong interior spaces. Conceived as a polycentric book, where a number of themes come together--private-public use, use-exchange, space-time, local-global, prescribed-interim use and control-deviation--the highly visual HK LAB 2 deals with the changing nature of urban experience and inhabition. Expressed in extreme and spectacular ways, or in a gradual and less visible fashion, the acts of building, decorating, furnishing, using, transforming and repressing interiors shown here convey meanings about the reciprocal relationships between people and their spaces.

Because of its singular history and geographic location, Hong Kong represents a unique synthesis of global city and local territory. The extreme character of its temporal and spatial conditions makes Hong Kong a moving platform of exchange within the Asian and world markets. In Mapping HK, the architects of Map Office treat Hong Kong as a test case for a critical experiment, in which the city is documented both visually and in text, as an attempt to understand the effects of speed and density on our urban environments.