2021

Hong Kong
archival print/dibond/white frame
59-77.9 inches, (edition 5 + 2 a.p.)

In Hong Kong, the Mass Transit Railway Cooperation (MTR) manages some 130,000 homes, 1 million square feet of office space and a similar number of other commercial properties. The MTR is a property developer that also manages a metro system. When the public organization was established in 1975, the Hong Kong government sold or gave MTR land under or near its stations on the condition for development. The revenues should support the transportation system without government subsidy. It has become a well-known typology of Hong Kong. A station is being built on top of a metro line with a parking garage, a shopping center and on top of that apartments reaching up to the clouds. The thick pillars that sometimes take away space in the metro stations bear this weight. MTR’s real estate business is very lucrative. The company’s interests extend as far as mainland China, where it is working on a similar model, as well as Sweden, where it operates the Stockholm metro, and the United Kingdom, where it has taken on the London Overground.