Amazing Photographs Capture Daily Life in Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong in the 1980s

The Kowloon Walled City was a singular Hong Kong phenomenon: 33,000 people living in over 300 interconnected high-rise buildings, built without the contributions of a single architect, ungoverned by Hong Kong's safety and health regulations, covering one square city block in a densely populated neighborhood near the end of the runway at Kai Tak airport.

In collaboration with Ian Lambot, Greg Girard spent five years photographing and becoming familiar with the Walled City, its residents, and how it was organized. So seemingly compromised and anarchic on its surface, it actually worked -and to a large extent, worked well. The Walled City was torn down in 1992 but the photographs, oral histories, maps and essays in their book provide the most thorough record of daily life in a place that was a true Hong Kong original. They are updating and redesigning the book, and funding publication via Kickstarter here.

(Photos © Greg Girard)