Central Colonial and Modern Icons

Jardine House wears its facade like a honeycomb. Thousands of identical, circular windows punctuate the white aluminum walls, creating a pattern that locals have nicknamed the House of a Thousand Windows. When it opened in nineteen…

Statue Square features a dense cluster of towering, dark-leaved trees that shade a paved plaza in the heart of Hong Kong’s financial district. Despite its name, the space holds only a single statue today, of a banker named Thomas Jackson.…

The Court of Final Appeal occupies a building topped by a statue of Themis, the goddess of justice, who holds her scales but notably lacks a blindfold. This granite structure served as the Legislative Council Building for over a century…

The HSBC Main Building sits on four steel towers that support its floors from above, a design that left the ground level completely open to the public. When the architect Norman Foster finished it in nineteen eighty-five, he created a…

The Former French Mission Building features a striking exterior of red brick and grey granite, punctuated by a small, private chapel tucked into the corner. It sits on the site of a former bungalow owned by a judge who allegedly complained…

St John’s Cathedral features a heavy, grey stone exterior with a prominent square tower that anchors the hillside above the government offices. Completed in eighteen forty-nine, it serves as the oldest Anglican church in the Far East.…

The Bank of China Tower cuts a jagged, crystalline profile into the Hong Kong skyline, its sharp triangular prisms rising seventy stories above the street. Designed by I. M. Pei, the structure mimics the growth of bamboo, symbolizing…