ABSTRACT
Architecture is the science of building raised to a fine art. Like any work of art, it can also be considered ‘textual’ for broader cultural exegesis. Mikhail Bakhtin says a text is ‘any coherent complex of signs’ (Bakhtin 1986:103), a definition which encompasses everything from literature to visual and aural works of art, as well as everyday action and communication. Given this pantextual idea, we can approach architecture as a commonplace of contemporary discourse embracing a wide semiotic range and exhibiting the entire spectrum of artistic practices, cultural manifestations and political implications. By engaging with architecture as text in a kind of ‘threshold encounter’ with the vogue of the ‘postmodern’, this paper attempts to examine the new Bank of China Buildings in Hong Kong and Macau. 1 These two buildings are not merely skyscrapers using high technology and the rhetoric of postmodern design, they also exhibit cultural connotations and political overtones and are expressions of a vicarious ideology of resurgent power in the two colonies. The questions to raise are: what features are considered ‘postmodern’ in these two buildings? Are there any problems in the creation and interpretation of architectural metaphors between the architect’s intention and the general public’s reaction? How is political power ‘textualized’ in architecture and how do these two Bank buildings represent the political power of the Chinese government well in advance of the destined decolonization of Hong Kong and Macau? Through a ‘reading’ of these two Bank buildings, it is hoped to provide some insights into the relationship between culture and politics, predicated on architecture, in the crucial years leading up to the handover of British Hong Kong and Portuguese Macau to China on 1 July 1997 and 20 December 1999 respectively.
