HSBC Main Building

Norman Foster’s bank in Hong Kong hangs from steel masts like a bridge. There are no columns in the middle, and the ground floor is an open plaza that people can walk straight through. A mirror at the top of the atrium brings sunlight down through the whole building.

The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation held a competition for a new headquarters in 1979, and Norman Foster won. The building went up in 1983–1986 and was then the most expensive building in the world. Large parts of it were made elsewhere, in Britain, Japan and the United States, and shipped to Hong Kong. Foster also consulted a feng shui expert on the planning.

The structure consists of eight steel masts, each made up of four tubes, carrying large trusses on five levels. The floors hang from the trusses, so that they have no columns. The ground floor is an open public plaza, and from there escalators lead up to the banking hall. Above the banking hall is an atrium ten storeys high. A system of mirrors on the outside and at the top of the atrium brings in sunlight. The façades show the steel structure clearly.

The building became a symbol of Hong Kong’s economic power and of high-tech architecture. The open plaza beneath it is used by many as a meeting place, especially on Sundays. Foster received the Pritzker Prize in 1999. The building showed how a high-rise could be built in a new way and influenced his later work.

• Contemporary architecture
• Norman Foster