Multi-strata Metropolis: The Multi-level Indoor Pedestrian Spaces in Commercial Ensembles of Hong Kong Central
One of the popular aspirations of Modern Architecture is the democratic and super-efficient Mobility of pedestrians. Architects hoping to achieve this ideal were once busily designing three-dimensional arrays of footbridges interwoven with airy, day-lit, multi-leveled, mixed used public indoor spaces in dense ensembles of urban mega-buildings. This dream, once appearing merely in 1920s movies like the Metropolis, and later in post-war England on drawing boards of Archigram group, eventually found its way into a generation of North American commercial atrium, like the IDS Centre in Minneapolis (1973, Johnson) and Eaton Centre in Toronto (1974-81, Zeidler), and finally full-fledged realized in Central of Hong Kong.