The Kowloon Walled City was a densely populated, largely ungoverned settlement located in the middle of Hong Kong. The plot was originally used as a Chinese military fort until the region was leased to Britain in the late 1800s, at which point it slowly became a tightly packed residential area with layers of small apartments built upon one another. The buildings were so tall and densely packed the residents saw little to no daylight unless they left the complex or made their way to the roof.
After WW2, China announced its intent to reclaim its rights to the Walled City but little progress was made, shortly after this scores of refugees from mainland China poured in to the area and by 1947, an estimated 2000 squatters occupied the space. After a failed attempt to drive them out in 1948, the British adopted a ‘hands-off’ policy in most matters concerning the Walled City. It was left to govern and sustain itself.
With no government enforcement from the Chinese or the British, the tightly condensed network of streets and alleyways became a haven for crime and drugs, virtually ruled by organised crime groups known as the Triads. These gangsters lived peacefully alongside other residents who ran numerous small factories and businesses that thrived serving the tightly-knit community. Inside the narrow dark alleys you could find almost anything from grocery stores to medical care, there was little the residents needed to leave the Walled City for (except um, maybe sunlight).
Over time, both the British and the Chinese governments found the criminal activities and sanitary conditions inside the city to be increasingly intolerable, and in 1987, they decided to demolish it. Demolition finally started in 1993 and was completed within a year.
Access to the Walled City was restricted for non-residents, meaning few people knew much about life inside. A few photographers were lucky enough to enter so there are photos of it floating about online, but considering the size of the area and how long it was around, these photos are few and far between.
Here in Japan, in the city of Kawasaki, a games company decided team up with art director Taishiro Hoshino to recreate a section of the Kowloon Walled City as a backdrop for a three-story video-game arcade they were building. Painstaking efforts were made to reproduce the atmosphere of the complex. Long, dark alleyways were constructed with shops fronts and apartments modeled on those inside the original Walled City. All of the signs and posters inside have been recreated from original source material found in old photos, and items collected from around Hong Kong.
Want to see it for yourself? It is called The Warehouse, and it can be found in the city of Kawasaki which sits between Tokyo and Yokohama, it is roughly five minutes walk from Kawasaki Station (scroll down for address).
As well as the recreated Kowloon Walled City, The Warehouse has three floors of games and other activities.
All photos of this page were taken at The Warehouse in 2016.
One of the highlights of the place, and one that took me completely by surprise were the toilets! Huge effort has been made to get them looking as grimy as possible while keeping them just about clean and suitable enough for public use!
Check out this photo by Ryuji Miyamoto to get an idea of how big the real Walled City actually was. Also take a look at the details of an expedition that was made inside the Walled City a few months before it was demolished by Takayuki Suzuki here, he went on to map the entire place and draw an amazing cross section of the city.