Hong Kong Corner Houses

Book excerpt: What makes Michael Wolf stand above other photographers is his knack for capturing things that appear mundane and inconsequential within the chaos of the urban environment, and turning them into thought-provoking discoveries… Wolf makes us look at and appreciate the surprising multitude of delightful urban phenomena that we tend to overlook or under appreciate. By this means, he challenges the assumptions we have about the city we think we know. 吳爾夫 (Michael Wolf) 在攝影界中傲視同儕，是他能以卓越的攝影技巧，把煩囂都市生活中捕捉到平平無奇的小事，換化成令人細味的影像。我們自以為很了解這個城市，吳爾夫卻利用攝影，讓我們體會到這些被我們忽略了的有趣景象。 In Hong Kong Corner Houses, the internationally renowned German photographer Michael Wolf continues with his visual quest for the overlooked and underappreciated urban phenomena that give a city its special character. This time, he draws our attention to Hong Kong’s urban corners and buildings that are often inconspicuous amid the high-rise, high-density urban clutter of Hong Kong. These ordinary residential-commercial buildings of 1950s and 1960s vintage represent the expression of local Chinese pragmatism and expediency in the economic austerity of early postwar decades. The photographic presentation captures the inherent paradoxes of their architectural character: the quiet prominence, attractive banality, and tectonic chaos that give urban Hong Kong its endearing quality. Complementing the superb photographs of Michael Wolf, Hong Kong Corner Houses features an essay and extended captions by two of Hong Kong’s best-known academics in the field of architectural conservation, Drs. Lynne DiStefano and Lee Ho Yin. 在《街頭街尾》一書裏，國際聞名的德國攝影師 Michael Wolf再次運用敏銳的觀察力，尋覓一些常被忽略和忽視的香港城市現象，令讀者重新發現，隱藏在高樓林立的市區中別具風格的「街頭街尾」建築。 《街頭街尾》內所載的建築物，皆是五、六十年代的商住大廈。它們的出現，反映了香港華人在戰後的艱難條件下，如何運用務實的設計，應付迅速增長的屋宇需求。在這些其貌不揚、平平無奇和看似雜亂無章的建築物當中，Michael Wolf以卓越的攝影技巧，捕捉了它們生氣勃勃的一面，換化成令人細味的影像。這些充滿矛盾的特點正是香港引人入勝之處。 本書有幸邀請了香港大學著名的建築文物保護學者李浩然博士（Lee Ho Yin）和狄麗玲博士（Lynne DiStefano），為《街頭街尾》撰寫緒言及補充圖片說明。