In this post, we would like to introduce Yuan JIN, a member of the Network.
Yuan JIN is a PhD student at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. In the note written by her below, she shares with us her reflections on her academic journey and current project on the Kowloon Waterworks system in Hong Kong.
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In 2020, I completed a study on the remains of the Beijing city wall at the Rhode Island School of Design. At that time, my thinking was still grounded in architectural design. I was accustomed to understanding buildings through their spatial forms, material textures, and structural logic. Yet, through a prolonged dialogue with the ruins, I began to realize that what might appear to a designer as a simple structural unit, a single brick or stone, could in the long course of history, become a vessel of power, memory, and time.
It was during this process of reflection that I established contact with Professor Thomas Chung at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Learning of my deep interest in adaptive reuse of architectural heritage, he shared with me a sensational news story: the unexpected demolition of the Ex-Sham Shui Po Service Reservoir. The event shook Hong Kong and profoundly moved me. Why is it that these underground infrastructures, quietly sustaining the city, only resurface into public consciousness at the very moment they are about to vanish?
That question became the turning point of my research. I began to shift my gaze from monumental heritage above ground to the invisible infrastructures buried within the city. My design training sharpened my sensitivity to spatial logic and form, while historical research guided me to trace the institutional and social forces that shaped these spaces. Later, during a site visit to the reservoir, I met architectural historian Professor Adam Jasper, whose reflections from cultural and historical perspectives offered me invaluable insight. I came to understand that such seemingly technical structures are in fact “mediators”: they connect governance and resistance, linking collective memory to urban identity.
As my research deepened, I often found myself looking back to the origin of my fascination with architecture and history, when had it begun, and why had it persisted? In truth, this passion had taken root during my secondary school years, when I became deeply drawn to the Japanese TBS documentary series The World Heritage, first aired in 1996. With its quiet, contemplative cinematography, the series unfolded the world’s heritage sites one by one: the Abu Simbel temples in Egypt, the stepwells of India, the Aflaj irrigation systems of Oman, and the water city of Venice. It was through these images that I first understood heritage not as static monuments, but as the living convergence of civilization, environment, and memory.
These images profoundly shaped how I came to see the world, extending into my later journeys. Each time I stepped into one of those sites, the experience felt like a reunion between my youthful imagination and the tangible presence of space, an encounter where time, memory, and architecture intertwined once again. Perhaps for this reason, I have never regarded “heritage” as something belonging to the past, but rather as a continuing present, constantly reactivated by our acts of seeing and remembering.
Figure 1 Title page of “Kowloon Waterworks Gravitation Scheme,” laid before the Hong Kong Legislative Council by command of His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government, c. 1892. Hong Kong Government Records, Hong Kong Public Records Office (HKRS)
圖 1《九龍重力供水計劃》文件標題頁，由署理總督奉命提交予香港立法局，約1892年。香港政府檔，香港公共檔案處（HKRS）
This interweaving of personal experience and academic background has led me to focus my doctoral research on the Kowloon Waterworks system in Hong Kong. Drawing on historical archives, engineering drawings, newspapers, and personal diaries, I attempt to reconstruct the colonial waterworks projects of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, examining how they became critical instruments in shaping public health governance amid epidemics, droughts, and social tensions. The granite columns and red-brick vaults, the wells and pipelines, are not merely technical artefacts. They are the material witnesses of social conflict, governance, and collective memory.
Looking ahead, I hope my research will not only bring these long-buried “underground heritages” back into public discourse but also inspire a renewed understanding of their significance in the contemporary city. Water is more than the city’s lifeline; it is a metaphor. Flowing through concealed conduits and beneath stone vaults, it silently records the city’s making and transformation. The city grows in the light above ground, yet continues to speak in the darkness below.
Yuan JIN
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2020 年，我在美國羅德島設計學院完成了一項關於北京城牆遺址的研究。彼時的我，仍以建築設計的訓練為基礎，更習慣從空間形態、材料肌理與結構邏輯的角度去理解每一座建築。然而，在與遺址的反覆對話中，我逐漸體會到：對設計者而言，一塊磚石或許只是結構的單元，但在歷史的長河之中，它同時也是權力、記憶與時間的承載體。正是在這樣的反思下，我與香港中文大學的鍾宏亮教授建立了聯繫。他了解到我對建築遺產適應性再利用的濃厚興趣，並與我分享了一則當時轟動全城的新聞，深水埗配水庫的意外拆卸風波。那則新聞震動了香港社會，也深深觸動了我：為何這些沉睡於地下的基礎設施，總要在瀕臨消失的那一刻，才以斷裂的方式重新被社會看見？
這一疑問成為我研究轉向的起點。我開始將目光，從地表上顯性的紀念性遺產，轉向城市內部那些被忽略與隱藏的基礎設施空間。建築設計的訓練賦予我辨析空間邏輯與形式語言的敏銳度，而歷史研究的路徑，則引領我追溯制度與社會動力的脈絡。其後，在一次有關配水庫的實地參觀中，我結識了建築史學者 Adam Jasper 教授。他從歷史與文化的角度給予我諸多啟發，使我愈發明白：這些看似純屬技術層面的建築，實則是權力與記憶的載體，承載著城市的身份與社會的矛盾。
Figure 2 Collecting Valley No. 1, Kowloon Reservoir, Hong Kong, early 1900s–1910s. Album of views titled “Hong Kong 3. Views of Hong Kong from the 1860s to the 1920s,” CO 1069-446, The National Archives, Kew; image reference NA16-060 (via University of Bristol, “Historical Photographs of China”).
圖 2《九龍水塘集水谷一號》（Collecting Valley No. 1, Kowloon Reservoir, Hong Kong），攝於二十世紀初（約1900至1910年代）。相片收錄於《香港三：1860至1920年代香港景觀集錦》相冊，英國國家檔案館（The National Archives, Kew），檔案號 CO 1069-446，圖片編號 NA16-060。資料來源：布里斯托大學「中國歷史影像資料庫」（Historical Photographs of China）。
隨著研究的深入，我時常回望自己與建築、歷史之間那條更為深遠的脈絡——那份最初的興趣，究竟如何生成，又為何能延續至今。事實上，這種對建築與歷史的迷戀，早在中學時期便已萌芽。那時，我尤為熱衷於日本 TBS 電視台自 1996 年起製作的紀錄片《THE 世界遺產》。節目以靜謐悠長的鏡頭語言，將世界各地的遺址一一呈現，從埃及的阿布辛貝神廟、印度的階梯井，到阿曼的阿弗拉傑（Aflaj）水利系統與威尼斯的水城景觀。那是我第一次理解到，遺產從來不是凝固的個體，而是人類文明、自然環境與社會記憶長期交織的成果。
這些影像深深塑造了我觀看世界的方式，也延伸了我此後的旅程。每一次親身踏入這些建築遺址，都像是在將少年時期的觀看經驗與現實空間的感知重新疊合，一次關於空間、時間與記憶的再遇。或許正因如此，我從未將「遺產」視為屬於過去的事物，而是一個不斷被喚醒的當下。
Figure 3 Scheme and Construction of the Kowloon ‘Hongkong’ Waterworks System,” by L. Gibbs, The Far Eastern Review 3, no. 3 (March 1907): 316–319.
圖 3 L. Gibbs，〈《九龍「香港」供水系統之設計與建造》〉，《遠東評論》（The Far Eastern Review）第3卷第3期（1907年3月），頁316–319
這種個人經驗與學術背景的交織，使我在博士研究中聚焦於香港九龍的水務系統。透過歷史檔案、工程圖紙、報章與私人日記，我嘗試重構十九世紀末至二十世紀初的殖民地水務工程，並探討它們如何在瘟疫、旱災與社會抗爭之中，成為塑造公共衛生治理的關鍵節點。那些拱頂石柱與紅磚牆體、水井與輸水管道，不僅是城市運作的隱性基石，也是社會矛盾、治理邏輯與文化記憶的物質見證。
展望未來，我希望自己的研究，不僅能讓這些被塵封的「地下遺產」重新進入公共敘事，也能促使人們重新思考它們在當代城市中的意義。水不僅是城市的生命線，更是一種隱喻，它流經暗渠，穿越石砌拱頂，在無聲的流動之中，記錄著城市的生成與變遷。
金媛
