Hong Kong: Sheer Vertical Forest

(Note: This was shot on a Sunday morning in late April 2010 from 28th floor of Hotel Jen, 508 Queen's Road West,
Western District).

Dear reader, I confess to a momentary pang of terror when I was invited recently into an East-West Center journalism fellowship that included four days in Hong Kong. What provoked this fear was the crowded Asian density of it all: New York City times 20 in terms of sheer vertical forest. I am not acclimated day in and out to such heights and crowds. I live in a medium-sized California metro of mid-rise dwellings and single-family detached houses. I had visions of claustrophobia attacks inside crowded urban scenes like this:



I arrived at Hong Kong International Airport at midnight, however, and saw the immense skyline first at night. It was such a lovely arrival, floating by freeway past the giant port facilities and through varying landscapes of lighted residential towers. Surprisingly, after getting oriented the first day by peering out from the roof of the hotel, it was a stunningly easy city to trek. I walked and walked for hours that Sunday, seeing the shops, farmers markets and restaurants on the ground floors of these endless 20- to 40-story buildings. Even the senior citizens' homes have your grandparents living on the 38th floor in endless buildings like this below. I have to say: I do not envision this as ideal retirement.




Yet strolling the city revealed lots of small green pocket parks and nice design touches as this below - street planters filled in this instance with pink Vincas - to help break up its endless asphalt and concrete:





I admit to arriving in Hong Kong a bit clueless about actual standout buildings, most of them banks. I have been trying to identify this building below with the ball on top, so far without luck. Anyone know? I am also trying to identify the building across Kowloon Bay - and will resume efforts when I get this posted.



The International Finance Center is one of those standouts, along with the Bank of China and Hongkong and Shanghai Bank Corp. (HSBC). You can see the IFC in the distance up this street.





I sure did enjoy design trekking that city. It would take days and weeks to see all the high points. I didn't see the skyline from the Star Ferry. Nor did I see the skyline spectacularly lit up at night. We spent most of our time at the University of Hong Kong attending a three-day conference. I'd like to come back.

Lastly, here are two short street-scene video from the bus (downhill from UHK back to the central city).

White Picket Fences: The Timeless Allure of Home

If you have ever seen a World War II movie where the soldier comes home at last with all the emotion that entails - what does the house always have?

A white picket fence.



In the United States some design elements just roar with symbolism and communicate larger themes across generations. They are icons that strike deep in the American pscyhe. So it is with the white picket fence.

I wish I had one. It's American Ideal, especially when combined with older houses and leafy streets. I see this house often on lunch-time walks in Midtown Sacramento. The only thing better would be if it had a bigger yard.



Google "white picket fence" in Google images for a treasure trove of what makes you feel good. Check out this photo site of white picket fence images. Here is a pretty good try at explaining the historical resonance.

For members of my generation the WPF means Donna Reed and Leave It To Beaver - perfect, idyllic, pastoral. I'm not sure either of those TV families had a WPF, but the Partridge Family did. So did Steve Martin in "Father of the Bride."

It's no accident that new urbanist communities like Seaside, Fla. require white picket fences as boundary markers. We have a Cape Cod-style 1980s development in Sacramento, Heritage Wood Circle, that requires white picket fences. It's a beautiful neighborhood.

Mock if you must. But I trust your soul wishes you lived here below, were eating warm chocolate chip cookies served by your mom and starting your 8th grade homework (which will receive five gold stars and A+, of course).



Here are three more picket fences in Midtown Sacramento:








Symbolism, symbolism below - even in a small way in a tiny part of the yard. Here are California poppies behind a (plastic, miniature) white picket fence. I found this in my suburban neighborhood on a Sunday morning while walking with coffee).

Rural Geometry of New-Mown Hay

My wife and I, driving yesterday morning through southern Sacramento County, passed one of the most beautiful sights of farm country - spring fields of fresh-cut hay near Interstate 5. I love the smell that goes with these photos. I grew up on a farm in Northwest Ohio, where new-mown hay was the best smell on earth. I like the visual order in rows of bales in a green or straw-colored field.

Once more, tricked up a little in black and white, like some weird Stonehenge:

High Above The World In Taipei 101

I am afraid of heights. Yet, from the time I saw my first high-rise in Columbus, Ohio, at the age of six or seven, I am fascinated by skyscrapers. So what a treat, while visiting Taiwan recently, to go up into what was briefly once the world's tallest building, Taipei 101.

Photo courtesy of dans.photo@gmail.com 2009

We were a group of reporters and editors, visiting Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan through an East-West Center Asia Pacific fellowship. One night in the city we were whisked by the Association of Taiwan Journalists to the 85th floor of this giant to look out over a city of more than 2 million people. It was a stunning sight, with dusk coming on and beautiful rivers of arterial traffic below as people left work for home. I can never stand too close to the window, however. I look out, but not straight down. I don't need to feel that vulnerable, thank you.

But it is a beautiful piece of earth's skyline. It stands virtually alone in its neighborhood, a beacon that appears on postcards, key chains, stationery, you name it. Taipei 101 has become a symbol of the Republic of China - 23 million people just south of the People's Republic of China. Below is a gray-day view from my hotel window:


And another from the bus in the rain:


As American reporters we got a chance to meet with Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou. Most of the questions were about trade, economics and politics regarding China, but I asked the president about the building's symbolism in Taiwan, what it said about the city. He said, "I'm not really a fan of big buildings." But he said it's become a very successful business center and a "big tourist attraction." Mainland Chinese, especially, love to go up inside the distinctive landmark.

My home skyscraper guide, "Skyscrapers, a History of the World's Most Extraordinary Buildings," says of Taipei 101: "The skyscraper looks like an elongated multi-tiered pagoda, a traditional Asian form that symbolizes protection and achievement. It recalls, too, a bamboo plant, considered lucky by the Chinese and admired for its strength and resilience.

"The tower is composed of eight sections of eight floors each - eight being a lucky number associated with abundance and good fortune - and it faces south, an auspicious direction."

I felt auspicious myself coming down in its lightning-fast quiet elevators. Even being fascinated by this planet's skyscrapers it's always nice to be back on the first floor.

The Impeccable Taste of Lovely Singapore

In this whole big world of urban design there is everywhere else - and there is Singapore. I recently returned from Southeast Asia through an East-West Center fellowship - and fell in love with this excellent design outpost of nearly five million people on the southern tip of Malaysia.

Singapore is a small tropical country that raised itself from an under-developed colony under Great Britain to a global financial center in the span of my lifetime. Politically, it's a one-party state run - fortunately - by a government and urban planners with very good architectural taste. The waterfront skyline below testifies to the idea that good design can help create a great economy.



One of the most striking new features in Singapore is the Marina Bay Sands resort shown in two photos below. That's a ship on top of three hotel towers. I didn't get up there, but people say it's a walker's paradise of high-rise greenery. (The goal citywide is nearly 200 acres of high-rise landscaping by 2030).




View from a different part of the city:


I aim to study more about what global architectural firms designed what in this beautiful city. But here, for example, is the Singapore Supreme Court building.


And the National Library:


I shot this from a bus seat while stopped at a traffic light. I don't know if it's an office building or a residential high-rise. But the design is pure delight.


It was like this everywhere for five days. The airport was magnificent. Lush green landscaping adorned the parkway leading into the city. The streets were impeccably clean. I've long said that living amidst the magnificent scenery of Alaska, both in Kodiak and Juneau during the 1980s, ruined me for everywhere else. Lovely Singpore has done the same.

Adventures in Streetcar Suburbia

Long-time urban trekking friend Dave Todd and I ventured out this foggy morning to explore Oak Park, an historic Sacramento streetcar suburb. Dave and I have known each other for almost 20 years, since our days in Fresno. Three or four times a year we get coffee and go walking in an older Sacramento neighborhood, catching up with news and looking at designs.

A century ago Oak Park was one of the capital's first suburbs, connected by streetcar to downtown Sacramento. It still has great old infrastructure from that era. We discovered the wall of this one below, and felt rather like urban archaeologists. The wall paintings reveal the building as the home of Mother's Bread.
This whole wall looks like Gold Rush ruins you see along Highway 49 in the Sierra foothills. Is there anything that says classic like red brick and ivy?



This one below is like a cave painting. We saw "Horse Brand" painted on the wall. No mention of what it was. But here's the logo:



A few blocks down the line we looked up and saw the design embellishments that make these old office or retail buildings such classics. This one is near James McClatchy Park. Dave asked it out loud, the question so many have wondered about for 60 years: "Why could this be done then and not now?"






Across the park we saw the McGeorge School of Law, a division of Stockton's University of the Pacific. Look how this little street scene just invites you to come right on in.



Once more, without that bike route sign.

Baby Golden Gate Bridge

I went to a conference this morning at California State University, Sacramento, and parked in a garage near one of my favorite structures here in the capital. It's a mini-replica of San Francisco's Golden Gate bridge. This is a bike trail and pedestrian bridge across the American River, connecting the campus with the Campus Commons housing development. The bridge opened in 1966 and is one-tenth the size of the iconic original. I don't know the story of how it came to be. But it's sure pretty to look at, a visionary little piece of architecture named after the founding president of CSUS, Guy West.