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Today marks ten years since this infographic back page about the Kowloon Walled City was published by South China Morning Post. I explained in a few lectures the ins and outs of this project, and now I will do it here. Long 🧵
Mar 15, 2023 · 3:29 PM UTC
I love to go and sketch outdoors. It is an essential practice for me to learn more and more from observation drawing. I went to a particular park with some @USk_HongKong friends
So here I was, so happy drawing this bucolic pond—watercolour and sepia ink marker on Moleskine notebook
This day I learned about the history that contained this park. My urban sketcher friends explained to me the park's origin, once the walled enclave of Kowloon
The story impressed me, and I had never heard of it. I was fascinated by everything they told me. The park also has educational sections to understand more about Kowloon Walled City. There is a lot of material to get ideas
When I got to the office a few days later, I told my bosses I wanted to do something about this topic. At first, the project went on hold. We decided to go ahead after realising that the anniversary of its demolition was coming up
I started with research. It wasn’t too much information ten years ago. Kowloon Walled City was an enclave belonging to China; it left without a garrison after World War II. The place grew exponentially with refugees from China
I found the magnificent book by Greg Girard and Ian Lambot, “City of Darkness”; it was the primary basis for collecting visual information
For the main illustration, I prepared an isometric grid where I would draw the cutaway. An isometric view would be the best way to detail the life inside Kowloon Walled City
With @CorelPainter, I started to draw the line with the pencil tool using the grid that served as a guide to project the isometric view
I start to add the colour; I always work with a layer of neutral colour, so adding colours is easier for me to combine
I don't usually use many layers; in this case, only two, one for the line and another for the colour
The bottom part shows the evolution of this enclave. When it was a walled city in the 19th century, it was part of the Qing Dynasty's China
During the Japanese occupation, the wall's stones were used to build the Kai Tak airfield. After World War II, the Hong Kong government abandoned the enclave without jurisdiction; it began to fill with refugees arriving from China. That's how the city was in 1950
After the demolition, it became a park, the Walled City Park I mentioned at the beginning of this story. That I how it looks now.
Combined with this, other evolution with a visualisation based on points; each point is a person living in the City of anarchy. The years highlighted are 1898, with 700 inhabitants; 1940, 1950, 1973, 1980 and 1993, with 50,000. @officeofjane helped to produce these points
If you are interested in this infographic, South China Morning Post selling a quality poster on its website here store.scmp.com/products/city…
