Architecture of Density 20

It was in Hong Kong and China that Michael Wolf’s study of contemporary life in the city began. Having lived in Hong Kong for over 15 years, the city naturally became his visual playground and the subject of several of his series. In Architecture of Density, he focuses on the unique architecture of his adoptive city. Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated cities on the planet with most of its population living in skyscraping concrete tower blocks. The city’s architecture is driven by function, not form and one tower block can only be distinguished from the next by the bold colour schemes of its façade. For this series, Wolf created a “no exit” visual style by flattening the perspective and cropping out the sky and the ground. The resulting images transform these urban skylines into seemingly infinite abstractions that uncover the beauty in the city’s monotonous, brutalistic architecture.

Architecture of Density is more than a series of architectural abstractions; it is a reflection on the nature of contemporary urban life. This Hong Kong with neither ground nor sky becomes an imagined, symbolic city, where density is pushed to its limits. Although this city is all but deserted, these images act like cross-sections of an urban anthill, encouraging the viewer to wonder about the thousands of lives contained within these structures.

Photographs are printed using archival materials, mounted to an archival aluminum substrate, and framed in black behind acrylic; frames measure 0.75 inches wide and 2 inches deep.

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