“Floating pedestrian networks … either take the form of a pedestrian bridge or a labyrinth of corridors inside buildings… Pedestrians are able to experience a new game, navigating the urban complexity”.
Valerie Portefaix, Mapping Hong Kong
One of the popular aspirations of Modern Architecture is the democratic and super-efficient Mobility of pedestrians. Architects hoping to achieve this ideal were once busily designing three-dimensional arrays of footbridges interwoven with airy, day-lit, multi-leveled, mixed used public indoor spaces in dense ensembles of urban mega-buildings. This dream, once appearing merely in 1920s movies like the Metropolis, and later in post-war England on drawing boards of Archigram group, eventually found its way into a generation of North American commercial atrium, like the IDS Centre in Minneapolis (1973, Johnson) and Eaton Centre in Toronto (1974-81, Zeidler), and finally full-fledged realized in Central of Hong Kong.
The first air-conditioned footbridge in Hong Kong appeared in 1963 across Chater Road in Central, spanning between Princes Building and Mandarin Hotel. The1974 erection of Connaught Building (now renamed Jardine House), then tallest building in Hong Kong, celebrated the purity of the tower form on top of giant legs, spanning above a transparent double-storey foyer integral with the adjacent public plaza. This form is not dissimilar to the contemporary Citicorp Center of New York (1977, Stubbins). Footbridge starting from the older part of Central, spanning across the Connaught Road by an innovative row of concrete ring structure, penetrates into the double height foyer as if floating in air.
The building of the underground railway system in Hong Kong, known as MTR, since 1975, decisively drove the urban scene from then on. The redevelopment of Alexandra House housed the Central Station directly beneath, and its podium arcade effectively acted as a node, linking the underground public spaces of the station courses with the footbridges high above the streets to reach other blocks and buildings in Central, much like the multi-level Shinjuku Station Complex of Tokyo.
The Landmark Development since 1978 pioneered the indoor public atrium in Hong Kong. The matured trees, rough pavings, circular fountain, half-round small balconies, and raised café platform, reveals its ambition to re-create the European plaza in a daylit air-conditioned commercial context, in an unprecedented size of 2500sm.
Escalators, first introduced to Hong Kong in 1957 to Man Yee Building, were later going to dominate all pedestrian route in Hong Kong, from MTR stations to footbridges. The Central-mid-level Escalator System of Hong Kong, being the longest escalator system in the world, presents an irony that exemplifies its success of efficiency on the one hand, but reflects of one at loss at its complexity, hinted in the Batman Movie of 2007.
Recent years renovations of these walkway systems offer an opportunity to re-assess the architectural values, if any at all. The Pre-war Princes Building colonnade used to offer a tranquil path for window shopping, somehow later lost, but may be re-created virtually by a well-lit zone under the glazed canopy. The obscure yet pioneering structures of the concrete footbridges may be re-presented by suitable innovative lighting schemes. The ceilings of the enclosed bridges can function as inverted pictures for viewing by passer-bys on the streets. Atriums and plazas can be re-integrated by re-configuring entrances and routes to improve cross visibilities. In the end, these seemingly mundane bridges and arcades deserve our re-examination of their values, in terms of their once noble aspiration of creating our Multi-strata Metropolis.