| HSBC Main Building | |
|---|---|
| 香港上海滙豐銀行總行大廈 | |
HSBC Main Building in June 2008 |
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| General information | |
| Type | Office |
| Location | Hong Kong |
| Coordinates | |
| Construction started | 1983 |
| Completed | 1985 |
| Cost | 5.2 billion HKD |
| Height | |
| Roof | 178.8 m (586.6 ft) |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 44 |
| Floor area | 99,000 m2 (1,065,627 sq ft) |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Lord Norman Foster and Partners |
| References | |
[1][2][3] |
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| HSBC Main Building, Hong Kong | |||||||||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 香港上海滙豐銀行大廈 | ||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 香港上海滙丰银行大厦 | ||||||||||||||
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The HSBC Main Building (Chinese: 香港滙豐總行大廈) is a headquarters building of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited in Central, Hong Kong. It is located along the southern side of Statue Square near the location of the old City Hall, Hong Kong (built in 1869, demolished in 1933). The previous HSBC building was built in 1935 and pulled down to make way for the current building. The address remains as 1 Queen's Road Central, Central. The building can be reached from Exit K of Central MTR Station and facing Statue Square.
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The first HSBC (then known as the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Company Limited) building was Wardley House, used as HSBC office between 1865 to 1882 on the present site. In 1864 the lease cost HKD 500 a month. After raising a capital of HKD 5 million, the bank opened its door in 1865.[4] It was demolished in 1886 and rebuilt in the same year.
The main feature of the second building design was the division of the structure into two almost separate buildings. The building on Queen's Road Central was in Victorian style with a verandah, colonnades and an octagonal dome, whereas the arcade which harmonised with the adjacent buildings was constructed on Des Voeux Road.
In 1935, the second building was demolished and a third design was erected. The third design used part of the land of the old City Hall, and was built in a mixed Art Deco and Stripped Classical style. This third building had, for a period of time after completion, been the tallest building between San Francisco and Cairo. During the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, the building served as the government headquarters. Locally, it was the first building in Hong Kong to be fully air-conditioned.
By the 1970s the bank had outgrown its headquarters; departments were scattered into offices all over Central Hong Kong, and it was obvious that such a "solution" to the space limitations could not continue indefinitely. In 1978 the bank decided to tear down its headquarters and rebuild it again. The building was finished on November 18, 1985. At the time, it was the most expensive building in the world (c.a.HK$5.2 billion, roughly US$668 million).
The first major addition to the building, designed by Hong Kong's One Space Ltd, was completed on November 23, 2006, in the form of a ground floor lobby that improves security access to the upper floors and creates a prestigious reception area. Its design and construction included the installation of the "Asian Story Wall", a multimedia installation consisting of twin banks of 30 seamless plasma screens (the largest installation of its kind in Hong Kong) displaying archived bank heritage and artworks.
The new building was designed by the British architect Lord Norman Foster and Civil & Structural Engineers Ove Arup & Partners (J. Roger Preston & Partners Engineering) and was constructed by Wimpey International.[5] From the concept to completion, it took 7 years (1978–1985). The building is 180-metres high with 47 storeys and four basement levels. The building has a module design consisting of five steel modules prefabricated in the UK by Scott Lithgow Shipbuilders near Glasgow, and shipped to Hong Kong. 30,000 tons of steel and 4,500 tons of aluminium were used. It is rumoured that the building's modular design enables it to be dismantled and moved, if there was any possibility of a disrupted handover to the People's Republic of China in 1997.
The new Lobby and its 2-part Asian Story Wall were designed by Greg Pearce, of One Space Limited. Pearce was also the Principal Architect of the Hong Kong Airport Express (MTR) station. Conceived as a minimalist glass envelope, the new lobby is designed to be deferential to Foster's structure and appears almost to be part of the original.This is not to be considered as any part of the original design and build.
The building is also one of the few to not have elevators as the primary carrier of building traffic. Instead, elevators only stop every few floors, and floors are interconnected by escalators.
The main characteristic of HSBC Hong Kong headquarters is its absence of internal supporting structure.
Another notable feature is that natural sunlight is the major source of lighting inside the building. There is a bank of giant mirrors at the top of the atrium, which can reflect natural sunlight into the atrium and hence down into the plaza. Through the use of natural sunlight, this design helps to conserve energy. Additionally, sun shades are provided on the external facades to block direct sunlight going into the building and to reduce heat gain. Instead of fresh water, sea water is used as coolant for the air-conditioning system.
All flooring is made from lightweight movable panels, under which lies a comprehensive network of power, telecommunication, and air-conditioning systems. This design was to allow equipment such as computer terminals to be installed quickly and easily.
Because of the urgency to finish the project, the construction of the building relied heavily on off-site prefabrication; components were manufactured all over the world. For example, the structural steel came from Britain; the glass, aluminium cladding and flooring came from the United States while the service modules came from Japan.
The inverted ‘va’ segments of the suspension trusses spanning the construction at double-height levels is the most obvious characteristic of the building. It consists of eight groups of four aluminium-clad steel columns which ascend from the foundations up through the core structure, and five levels of triangular suspension trusses which are locked into these masts.
The early British settlers in Hong Kong had an interest in Feng Shui; thus, most of the earliest buildings in Hong Kong, and many buildings constructed thereafter, were built with the philosophies of Feng Shui in mind. The Chinese believe that those who have a direct view of a body of water—whether it is a river, a sea, or an ocean—are more likely to prosper than those who do not (water is strongly associated with wealth in Feng Shui). The HSBC building has a wide open area (the Statue Square) in front of it, with no other buildings blocking its view of Victoria Harbour; thus, it is considered to have "good feng shui."
Even though the Hong Kong Government is proposing extending the existing coastline further out into the harbour in its latest land reclamation project, it will still set aside space so that no new developments will block the HSBC Building's view of the harbour. (It has been said that the HSBC is guaranteed its view of the harbour by the government.)
When HSBC decided to build its third Headquarters at 1 Queen's Road Central, opened in 1935, it commissioned two bronze lions from Shanghai-based British sculptor W W Wagstaffe (d 1977, aged 82). This commission was inspired by two earlier lions that had been ordered for the new Shanghai office opened in 1923. Cast by J W Singer & Sons in the English town of Frome, to a design by Henry Poole RA, these lions had quickly become part of the Shanghai scene, and passers-by would affectionately stroke the lions in the belief that power and money would rub off on them. They became known as Stephen and Stitt: an in-joke. Stephen was named for A G Stephen, formerly Manager Shanghai, and in 1923 the Chief Manager of HSBC, and G H Stitt, the then Manager Shanghai. Stephen is depicted roaring, Stitt quiescent, and again insiders said that this represented the characters of these two famous bankers.
The Hong Kong lions were to be considerably larger, as befitted the Head Office of the Bank.
Wagstaffe worked with "Shanghai Arts and Crafts" foreman Chou Yin Hsiang who in an interview with John Loch of HSBC's house magazine "Group News" in June 1977 [6] recalled that when he first joined Arts and Crafts he worked with Wagstaffe for two years to make the lions, without having to learn a word of English: Wagstaffe spoke perfect Shanghai dialect. Hunch-backed, Wagstaffe was nicknamed "Lao Doo Pei", meaning "Old Hunchback". His son, inevitably, was called "Sau Doo Pei" - "Young Hunchback." Wagstaffe had two sons - Tom, killed in Naval service in the war, and Harry, killed while interned in Shanghai by the Japanese. Chou Yin Hsiang himself came to Hong Kong in 1935, and by 1977 was the proprietor of Jeh Hsing Metal Works - and still casting bronze for HSBC.
Like the Shanghai lions, the Hong Kong lions became objects of veneration, and focii of the Bank's perceived excellent feng shui. Young couples still bring their toddlers to stroke the paws and noses of the statues hoping for luck and prosperity.
When the 1935 building closed its doors for the last time June 26, 1981 the Lions moved to the annexe June 19, 1981 The commencement demolishion July 6, 1981 by China Swiss Engineers. The lions were temporarily moved on 4 June 1982 to Statue Square, opposite main entrance. As a mark of the respect the lions were held in, the move to Statue Square, and the move back in 1985, were accompanied by the Chairman Sir Michael Sandberg and senior management of the Bank and the placement of the lions both temporarily and in their current locations was made only after extensive consultations with feng shui practitioners.
Their 2-year sojourn in Statue Square aside, the lions have only left their positions as guardians of the Des Voeux Road entrance of the Bank once: they were confiscated by the Japanese and sent to Japan to be melted down. Luckily the war ended before this could happen, and the lions were recognised by an American sailor in a dockyard in Osaka in 1945. They were returned a few months later and restored to their original positions in October 1946.
The Hong Kong lions are also called Stephen and Stitt, and the Hong Kong Stephen has bullet or shrapnel scars in its left hind-quarters dating from the fighting in the Battle of Hong Kong. When this pair of lions was used as the model for the pair commissioned for the new UK Headquarters of HSBC in 2002, Zambian-born New Zealand sculptor Mark Kennedy was asked not to reproduce these "war wounds" in the copies. They had to earn their own battle-scars.
There are also a few HSBC branches sporting copies of these lions:
The detailed step by step exact time line can be found in the book produced by George Wimpey International Ltd. This book carries a very detailed pictorial diary of the buildings progress from conception to completion. Also the book in slip case (1 Queen's Road Central)commissioned by HSBC which was presented to various chosen recipients at the grand opening. These two books hold all the FACTUAL details provided by HSBC:
In 2003, the Hong Kong Tourism Board developed a harbour lighting plan called "A Symphony of Lights",[12] a large-scale multimedia show featuring lighting, laser, music, and occasionally special pyrotechnics effects during festivals, in order to promote tourism in Hong Kong. The show is based on the illumination of key buildings on the Hong Kong Island side, and is best viewed from the Kowloon side across the Victoria Harbour. The HSBC Hong Kong headquarters building is one of the participating buildings in the show. The building has been installed with 716 intelligent lighting units, including 450 Martin Professional Cyclo 03 colour changing fluorescent fixtures in the glass stairwells, Martin Professional Exterior 600's and Exterior 200 fixtures on five levels, 8 search lights, and over one kilometre of LED lighting around the top. Completed by mid-December 2003, the cost of installation is estimated to be HK$5.5 million.
Intelligent lighting is distributed across six sections of the building:
HSBC has always aimed to adopt a new lighting scheme because Foster did not pay much attention to the illumination of the building at nighttime.