Rebekka Hirschberg

This is a tale of two cities – Toronto and Hong Kong. It tells about the life of two cities on the opposite sides of our planet. It deals with differences and commonalities, global and local phenomena, and the bond that connects the two cities: migration. After Deng Xiaoping and Margaret Thatcher had agreed on the handover of Hong Kong to China for 1997, “a flood of emigration was observed in the years leading up to this historic event”. Canada was by far the most popular destination – about 62% of all emigrants landed there. During the 1980s and 1990s, the majority arrived as “economic-class” immigrants (Chan 2014, 439-440). Many of them migrated back to Hong Kong after having obtained Canadian citizenship. The stories of five people, who have lived in both cities, lead to their daily life places and give an insight into transnational lifestyles. All these stories relate to architecture, which is the stage for our daily lives and the built expression of society. This book is an experiment on how to conduct artistic urban studies as an architect. The master thesis YYZ HKG. Eine Geschichte aus zwei Städten was supervised by Andreas Lechner (Institute of Design and Buidling Typology) betreut.