The state, property development and symbolic landscape in high‐rise Hong Kong

Abstract

The symbolic landscape of high‐rise Hong Kong is examined through the development of four major buildings in order to assess real and symbolic relations between the state and private property developers in the production of the built environment. The theoretical perspective combines understanding of symbolic landscape as the production of geographically constituted social relations, especially in the evolution of Hong Kong producer services industries, with the concept of the ‘exhibitionary complex’, in which the state and élites deploy ‘object lessons in power’ to engender popular identification with state interests. By the 1990s local land development consortia increasingly capitalized high‐rise construction, and projects for harbourfront land reclamations enlarged in scale and scope. The International Finance Centre, Hong Kong's future tallest building, is designed to instantiate Hong Kong's place in the regional and international financial services industry, but had also challenged public acceptance. New landscape conservation legislation seeks to limit further harbour reclamation and protect viewscapes.