Cinema architecture and the entertainment landscape : the interiorisation of consumer environments in Hong Kong, 1907-2000

Abstract

The journey of investigation began with the discovery of old photographs of magnificent movie palaces that proudly stood at the corners of major street intersections of Hong Kong. In the ensuing detective work that attempted to uncover the sparsely documented histories of these demolished movie theatres, larger questions began to arise with regards to the changing nature of entertainment spaces to serve as public spaces that produce and maintain meaningful public spheres. Through tracing the evolution of the architectural designs of movie theatres and their changing locations within the development trajectories of the city from their first emergence as spectacular standalone buildings to their later relocation into completely interiorised consumer environments, this dissertation attempts to reveal the implications of continual interiorisation, a capitalistic process uniquely manifested in Hong Kong in terms of intensified speed, height, and extent especially towards the last two decades of the twentieth century. Occurring in tandem with Hong Kong’s larger residential and commercial developments, the interiorisation process has been driven by the vested interests of capital and the state to exert total control over urban space and turn citizens into passive consumers through the offering of comfort, convenience, and (regulated) choice. This process has resulted in the blurring of the boundaries between the exterior and interior, the public and private, and pervasive dominance of the ‘integrated spectacle’. At the same time, developments in Hong Kong’s film industry witnessed growing engagement with the urban and political conditions of the city. In this context, the movie theatre became increasingly situated as a dialectical space of consumption that simultaneously engenders passivity and criticality. This special role of movie watching within the repertoire of urban entertainment programme thus lies in its ability to let the audience physically travel in and out of the mundane and be immersed in the fantastic cinematic world. By focusing on the movie theatre as a site of image consumption, the dissertation argues that the interiorised urban experience needs to be read in conjunction with the cinematic experience to reveal the changing notions of the ‘public’ in the contemporary city, which are significantly mediated through films, videos, and other spectacles. The contribution of this thesis is grounded in the narration of the development of the movie theatre as an architectural type in the context of Hong Kong’s rapid urban development. This overall trend is connected to the global development of late capitalism, which has experienced an intensified form in the context of Hong Kong’s rising wealth, high property prices, and political uncertainty. The dissertation argues that architectural space, urban development, the production and consumption of cultural texts are intertwined in the development of architectural, urban, and cultural identities of a city and its people. In this connection, my thesis attempts to make a connection between the disciplines of architectural history, urban geography, and cinema studies through the movie theatre as a site of convergence.