Form Follows Fever

Form Follows Fever is the first in-depth account of the turbulent years of initial urban settlement and growth of colonial Hong Kong across the 1840s. During this period, the island gained a terrible reputation as a diseased and deadly location…….

Christopher Cowell is an urban historian, author, and architect. He trained in architectural history at Columbia University and history at the University of Hong Kong. He now lectures at London South Bank University. Cowell’s writing examines the relationship between the practice and theory of architecture and urbanism against the cultural complexity of colonialism. He is the author of Form Follows Fever: Malaria and the Construction of Hong Kong, 1841–1849 (CUHKP, 2024), a book that explores the early history of the settlement’s colonisation and its relationship with miasma theory. He is now working on a second book on Company India and its system of military cantonments in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He recently won the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain’s coveted Hawksmoor Medal in 2024 for his work on hill stations in northern India.

Form Follows Fever, Disease and Pandemics

Our programme includes architect and historian Chris Cowell’s analysis of Hong Kong’s development under the British colonial forces. His presentation, Form Follows Fever, traces progress through the waves of malaria from 1841-1845 and how the ‘mal-air ‘of low-lying land contributed to that planning.

In 2003 Hong Kong was paralysed by the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome - better known as SARS. If you were in HK you may have memories and recall the fears as the disease spread and people died. Speculation of the cause was rife and there was little trust in the reports from China. In Hong Kong there were 1755 cases and 199 deaths.

Then came COVID-19 the worldwide pandemic of a respiratory infection related to the SARS genus. The worldwide spread led to shortages of equipment and personal protection items as well as differing views on its treatment and control.

What were your experiences during these fraught times?

Do you have any thoughts, images, or poems you would like to share?

You are invited to contribute to the event by uploading your recollections in whatever format you choose. Please upload by 3 December 2025.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1jQQOQ7yxJpBNZYIQLVbIkSUuITOnNAYm2gv7XfDHw5Y/edit