Could you be you in a place like this?

"Architecture of Density" by Michael Wolf

I guess if you´re not an architect your soul trembles at the prospect of living in the city of these images, the poor and hyperexploited part of Hong Kong. Even myself is somewhat ambivalent to Michael Wolf´s splendid photos, they have a definite chilling beauty to them, but also to a Western mind an absolutely grotesque denial of individuality in dwelling. I like houses that also express collective identity, such as the medieval town-house, and don´t overly pamper the Paris Hilton-extrovert egomaniacs of our modern age. Still I think if it was my individuality living in one of these houses I ´d despair pretty soon.

Because when a house becomes a home it also becomes a part of you yourself. Not very different from the clothes you´re wearing, and just as with those clothes you´re probably equally concerned about imagineering qualities, keeping you hip, as well as the purely functional aspect, keeping you warm and dry.

I put no moral aspect on any of this. The mask, dressing up, is probably as old as human civilization, and I guess life would be more fun-less without it. Besides, I would pretty much be job-less if aesthetic considerations were removed from the act of building and dwelling. Indeed the whole oppositional polarity between depth and surface is quite banale, at least in a spiritual sense. Wholly holy, as Marvin Gaye sung it, that´s the Christian ideal, not just the surface, wearing the right clothes and speaking religiously, and not just the inner sanctum of the soul, meditating on things holy but treating yourself and others like dirt.

With that said, I think most of us Westerners could probably benefit from a prolonged stay in a housing estate like one of these. I know I would, but Hong-Kong is a bit too far away. Because it´s very easy to fall in the pit of buying one´s value at other´s expense, which is what the whole “I´m uniquer than thou!”-thing is about. I imagine staying in a place like this would confront me with the question if I´m any different from any of my neighbours. I imagine if I stayed long enough I´d be confronted with the answer that they´re just as unique as I am. And we´re created in that fashion and don´t need clothes, houses or even words to prove it.

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"
He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."
And he said, "Who told you that you were naked?
Genesis 3:7-11