HSBC Main Building

HSBC 본점 빌딩

Norman Foster's headquarters for HSBC (1985): its floors hang from eight steel masts by double-height 'coat-hanger' suspension trusses, leaving the ground floor as an open public plaza under the building.

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At a glance

Country: Hong Kong SAR China
Location: Central, Hong Kong
Built: 1985
Height: 178.8 m
Type: Skyscraper

Quick answers

Where is HSBC Main Building?

HSBC Main Building is in Central, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR China.

When was HSBC Main Building built?

HSBC Main Building was built in 1985.

How tall is HSBC Main Building?

HSBC Main Building is about 178.8 m tall.

The HSBC Main Building is the headquarters of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, at 1 Queen's Road Central in Hong Kong, on the south side of Statue Square. The current building was designed by the British architect Norman Foster and finished on 18 November 1985. It opened officially on 7 April 1986. At 178.8 metres and 47 storeys, it was the most expensive building in the world at that time, at about 5.2 billion Hong Kong dollars.

Its main feature is that there are no internal supports. Eight groups of four steel columns, called masts, carry five levels of triangular suspension trusses, and the floors hang from them. This leaves the ground floor open as a public plaza under the building. It is a famous example of high-tech architecture.

Three buildings on one site

The site has held HSBC buildings since 1865, when the first bank used Wardley House. It was replaced by a second building completed in 1886, designed by Clement Palmer with a Victorian look and an octagonal dome. A third building opened in October 1935 and was the tallest in Hong Kong. It was the first building in Asia to be fully air-conditioned. In 1978 the bank decided to replace it with a new building to show the bank's modernisation.

Building in modules

It took seven years from concept to completion, from 1978 to 1985. Five steel modules were prefabricated in the UK by Scott Lithgow Shipbuilders near Glasgow and shipped to Hong Kong. The building used about 30,000 tons of steel and 4,500 tons of aluminium. Because of the rush, parts came from all around the world: steel from Britain, glass and aluminium cladding from the United States, and service modules from Japan.

A village in the sky

Lifts do not carry most of the traffic in the building. They stop only every few floors at atriums, and escalators connect the floors, so people can meet and talk between floors. The designers wanted 'a village in the sky'. The floors are made of movable lightweight panels over power, phone and air-conditioning networks. In 2006 a new ground-floor lobby with the Asian Story Wall, made of 60 plasma screens, was added.

Fun facts

When finished in 1985 it was the most expensive building in the world.
It was the most expensive building in the world when it was finished.
Its modules were built in Scotland and shipped to Hong Kong.
It was the site of the Occupy Hong Kong protests from October 2011 to September 2012.
The 1935 predecessor was the first fully air-conditioned building in Asia.