CHINESE UNIVERSITY architecture students stare in fascination at the most rebellious exhibition they've seen on their faculty walls, while the artworks' creator, Nancy Wolf, waits nearby.
'Architectural Visions' is a collection of meticulously created drawings, paintings and prints that show what happens when urban architecture goes horribly wrong. Glassy, cold skyscrapers form grids that imprison historic buildings like cages. Lost souls - Renaissance-era figures, African tribesmen and 70s punks - wander confused through lifeless modern landscapes, dwarfed by their massive and sometimes violent settings.
These are the creations of New York-based artist Nancy Wolf, who is best known for her satirical take on architecture. A genteel woman in her early 60s, she is standing quietly in the corner, waiting to deliver a lecture at CU.
She has just arrived in Hong Kong to take up a three-month residency at the university, and one can only guess what influence her tenure will have.
For decades, critics have applauded Wolf's ability to point out the flaws of modern architecture without uttering a word. Her highly detailed drawings, with their mix of comedy, horror and exaggeration, are more cutting than any critic's pen. Take, for example, 1974's Entrance to the City, which satirises Ludwig Hilberseimer's 'ideal city' with rows and rows of lonely humans taking the place of cars on a highway.
When Wolf visited Hong Kong in 2001, she was astounded by what she saw and used a list of remaining religious sites to explore her views of the city. 'I thought [Hong Kong] was really the subject of my work,' she says, sitting in the offices of the Asian Cultural Council, the organisation sponsoring Wolf's trip. 'Especially the New Territories. The housing and density and concern for architecture just seem so amazing. That's why I wanted to come back.'
She is more interested by the so-called New Towns and the prospect of seeing Shenzhen than the dramatic harbour front. She agrees there are 'phenomenal buildings', but also sees urban desolation. 'In the New Territories, yes. The shopping malls in Sha Tin - the first time I visited, there was a whole temple complex going up the hill. Now you look up and there is an enormous Ikea. The contrast! It's very much what my work is about.'