The infamous Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong was a mega structure of densely stacked proportions.
With no single architect, the colossal concrete jungle was built gradually, frenetically growing up and out with each crammed in shack.
Like a series of slipshod beehives, all chaos and lawlessness, every corner of the encased city was riddled with crime. Opium den upon opium den; brothel upon unlicensed dentists, the Walled City was fated to collapse.
Legend has it that the Walled City’s children would go to the roof and fly kites that could almost scrape the bellies of airplanes as they descended to nearby Kai Tak airport.
A rancorous eviction saw its 33,000 residents evacuated and it was demolished in 1993.
Drugs, sex and unlawful tooth extractions aside, little is known about what it was like to live within this fascinating urban enclave, but these drawings by Japanese researchers who studied the abandoned site before it was razed offer an incredibly intricate impression.
