Who Wins and Who Loses in the Production of Cultural Iconic Architecture?

Recent studies on the role of architecture within urban restructuring processes have become dominated by narratives on neoliberal urban entrepreneurialism, which consider urban development projects as key instruments of growth-oriented regimes and urban elites. In this paper, I want to focus on the role that cultural iconic architecture can play within a community to shape a collective identity and institute an urban imaginary. This study illustrates current cultural developments in Hong Kong, where most of the cultural budget has been spent on the global megaproject of the West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD). In contrast, the new development areas, particularly the later generations of new towns, lack almost any form of cultural infrastructure. This contrasts with the governments’ claims for creating self-contained communities. The provision of cultural buildings, when embedded in social and cultural life, can be an essential mechanism to shape a collective urban character and institute an urban imaginary. This study uses the framework of Kaika (2011) on urban imaginaries as an analytical structure to interpret the production of aesthetic symbols, based on Castoriadis’ (1987) account of the imaginary institution of society. The importance of such civic infrastructure has been largely overlooked in the evaluation of existing new towns and the plans for future urban extensions. This, too, should be considered as a right to the city.