Architecture sights in Hong Kong
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A
Central Escalator
The world’s longest covered outdoor people-mover is part commuter travelator, part sightseeing ride and part pick-up procession. It consists of elevated escalators, moving walkways and linking stairs on the 800m hill from Central’s offices to the bedroom communities of the Mid-Levels. The best part is gliding by the Shelley St bars; there’s just enough time to make flirtatious eye contact with the denizens within.
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HSBC Building
Make sure you have a close-up look at the stunning headquarters of what is now HSBC (formerly the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank) headquarters, designed by British architect Sir Norman Foster in 1985. The building is a masterpiece of precision, sophistication and innovation. And so it should be. On completion in 1985 it was the world’s most expensive building (it cost upward of US$1 billion). The building reflects architect Sir Norman’s wish to create areas of public and private space and to break the mould of previous bank architecture. The ground floor is public space, which people can traverse without entering the building; from there, escalators rise to the main banking hal…
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B
Ice House Street & Lower Albert Rd
This street has many interesting buildings. The attractive off-white stucco and red-brick structure at the top of the road is the Dairy Farm Building, built for the Dairy Farm Ice & Cold Storage Company in 1898 and renovated in 1913. Today it houses the Fringe Club and the illustrious Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Hong Kong. Towering above the Dairy Farm Building on the opposite side of the road is the Bishop’s House, built in 1851 and the official residence of the Anglican Bishop of Victoria. From the Dairy Farm Building, Ice House St doglegs into Queen’s Rd Central. Just before it turns north, a wide flight of stone steps leads down to Duddell St. The four wroug…
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C
Government House
Parts of this erstwhile official residence of the governor of Hong Kong, opposite the northern end of the Zoological & Botanical Gardens, date back to 1855 when Governor Sir John Bowring was in residence. Other features, including the dominant central tower linking the two original buildings, were added in 1942 by the Japanese, who used it as military headquarters during the occupation of Hong Kong in WWII. Hong Kong’s first chief executive, Tung Chee Hwa, refused to occupy Government House after taking up his position in 1997, claiming the feng shui wasn’t satisfactory, and his successor, Donald Tsang, has followed suit. Government House is open to the public three or fo…
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D
Former French Mission Building
The Court of Final Appeal, the highest judicial body in Hong Kong, is now housed in the neoclassical former French Mission building, a charming structure built by an American trading firm in 1868. It served as the Russian consulate in Hong Kong until 1915 when the French Overseas Mission bought it and added a chapel and a dome. The building was the headquarters of the provisional colonial government after WWII. Tree-lined Battery Path links Ice House St with Garden Rd. Just before the mission building is pretty Cheung Kong Garden, which developers were required to lay out when they built the 70-storey Cheung Kong Centre to the south.
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E
Lippo Centre
Though the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank building and the Hong Kong International Airport in Chep Lap Kok (1998) – both by English architect Norman Foster, in Late Modern high-tech style – may be Hong Kong’s best-known modern architecture, there are quite a number of fine modernist buildings in the territory designed by old masters. The Lippo Centre, which resembles koalas hugging a tree, is a pair of office towers built in 1987 by American Paul Rudolph.
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F
Hong Kong Club Building
The new Hong Kong Club building, a reincarnation of Hong Kong’s first gentlemen’s club, was designed by Australian Harry Siedler in the ’80s and features opposing concave and convex curves reminiscent of a swimming stingray.
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G
Hong Kong Academy for the Performing Arts
With its striking triangular atrium and an exterior Meccano-like frame, which is a work of art in itself, the academy building (1985) is a Wan Chai landmark and an important venue for music, dance and scholarship.
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H
Maryknoll Convent School
A russet sprawl of cloistered courtyards and medieval towers, Hong Kong’s most beautiful school was set up in 1937 to provide an inspired alternative to colonial-style education. Call about open days.
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Old Wan Chai Post Office
A short distance to the east of Wan Chai Market is this tiny but important colonial-style building erected in 1913 and now serving as a resource centre operated by the Environmental Protection Department.
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Shek Kip Mei Estate, Mei Ho House
A future youth hostel, there’s grace in the simplicity of this remaining block of Hong Kong’s earliest public housing estate, built in 1953 for the victims of a squatter fire.
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J
Nan Lian Garden
This splendid Tang-style garden connected to Chi Lin Nunnery is adorned with a pagoda, tea pavilion, koi pond, Buddhist pines, and sedimentary boulders resembling clouds.
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