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Due to the creative destruction so endemic to Hong Kong over the past 50 years, few historical buildings remain in Hong Kong. Instead the city has become a center for modern architecture, especially in and around Central. The tall business buildings of Central comprise the skyline along the coast of the Victoria Harbor, which is one of Hong Kong's famous tourist attractions. In Kowloon, which once included the anarchistic settlement called the Kowloon Walled City, strict height restrictions were in force until Kai Tak Airport closed in 1998, but these restrictions have now been lifted, and several new skyscrapers in Kowloon are being planned. Hong Kong's best-known building is arguably Ieoh Ming Pei's Bank of China Tower, completed in 1990 and now Hong Kong's third tallest skyscraper. The building attracted heated controversy from the start, as its sharp angles were said to cast negative feng shui energy into the heart of Hong Kong. Predating the Bank of China Tower, another well-known structure is the HSBC Headquarters Building, finished in 1985. It was built on the site of Hong Kong's first skyscraper, which was finished in 1935 and was the subject of a bitter heritage conservation struggle in the late 1970s. Both banks' buildings are featured on many of Hong Kong's banknotes. The tallest building in Hong Kong is Two International Finance Center One of the largest construction projects in Hong Kong and the world was the new Hong Kong International Airport on Chek Lap Kok near Lantau, a huge land reclamation project linked to the center of Hong Kong by the Lantau Link, which features three new major bridges: the world's sixth largest suspension bridge, Kap Shui Mun, the world's longest cable-stayed bridge carrying both road and railway traffic, Tsing Ma, and the world's first major four-span cable-stayed bridge, Ting Kau. |
Hong Kong Information: Inside
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