Look up. Look wa…..........y up. As a child I watched a CBC television program called The Friendly Giant. The show started with a camera shot of the boots of the tall man who was its host. In his friendly voice he’d intone….look up. Look wa…………y up and my eyes would follow the camera up his body to his smiling face.
I am often reminded of the Friendly Giant when I visit downtown Hong Kong. It is home to some of the most distinctive-looking skyscrapers in the world. As I step off the train at Hong Kong’s central station my eyes are drawn up, wa……………y up as I gaze at all the fascinating buildings.
During our years of living in Hong Kong we’ve seen the city’s skyscrapers more times than we can count. We’ve developed funny descriptive names for some of them. We’ve dubbed the HSBC Bank “The Coat Hanger’ because the aluminum designs on the front look for all the world like coat hangers.
We’ve nicknamed the Dragon House office complex ‘The Cheese’ because it is dotted with hundreds of round windows that made it look like a huge rectangle of Swiss cheese. The IFC (International Finance Company) building always reminds us of a frosted cake and The Center skyscraper is The Star because it has five points. ‘King Kong’ is the perfect name for the Cheung Kong building.
Last Saturday my husband and I took an architectural walk through downtown Hong Kong with Rudy and Sue Nikkel who are visiting us from Steinbach. An architecture student named Kit guided us and told us all about the unique design of Hong Kong’s buildings. I learned many things not only about Hong Kong ‘s modern skyscrapers but also about the city’s older buildings being preserved for historical reasons.
I found out the building we’d dubbed The Cheese was created to look like a ship with round port holes because it is situated right on the ocean. Kit told us The Coat Hanger, or HSBC bank building, was designed in such a way that it could be dismantled and moved if necessary. This was done because the building was completed not long before Hong Kong was handed over to China in 1997. People were very worried at the time that businesses would not be able to operate freely in Hong Kong. If there was undue interference from the Communist Party, the HSBC headquarters could be dismantled and moved to a different city.
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| Dave Driedger and Sue Nikkel in front of the Hong Kong Police Station built in 1864. |
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I found out the IFC Building has 80 floors because for the Chinese eight is a lucky number and 88 represents double good fortune. I learned the 62-storey Cheung Kong building had been climbed barehanded last month by a man from France who wanted to raise awareness about global warming. Our guide told us the star-shaped centre building has special tracks built into its exterior walls for window washers’ platforms.
One thing I discovered on our tour is that the city of Hong Kong is not only encouraging developers to build brand new skyscrapers, it is also trying to preserve buildings of historical significance. We stopped to look at the classic architecture of the old police station and Bishop House, Hong Kong’s first religious school. We saw the lovely St. John’s Cathedral built in 1849 and the Fringe Theatre Building constructed in 1890. Many of these buildings were erected high on hills and embankments, both for safety reasons and to highlight their prominence.
Next time I visit downtown Hong Kong and look wa………….y up I’ll do so with a whole new appreciation for the buildings around me both old and new.
