Lippo Center

Date(s): 1984
Location: Hong Kong, China
Status: Built
Type: Residence

The Lippo Centre is a double office tower on Hong Kong Island, whose unusual blue curtain wall facades evoke koala bears climbing a tree. There are three large bay windows on top of one another on each side of the four long facades, rotating around the structure. The towers are offset from each other. The supporting columns are visible only at the base of the tower. The design results in a total of 58 different office floor plans and lots of corner windows. Both towers have hexagonal floor plans with one tower being 36 and the 40 floors tall and stand on a common, four-storey podium. Today the building is owned and used by Indonesia’s Lippo Bank. At the time of construction the building was, however, it was known as “Bond Center”. The towers are 186 meters tall. The mirror glass facades were imported from the USA and resemble those of the twin towers of the City Center in Fort Worth/Texas, built four years earlier. The skyscrapers are accessed at street level as well as on the elevated skywalk level and through a system of terraces and walkways are connected to Hong Kong’s elevated pedestrian network. The large foyer is planted and covered with pink-colored, Spanish granite. The twelve main columns are visible in the lobby and are designed to resemble “hydraulic pumps that hold the building up” (PMR).

Structural Engineer: Wong & Ouyang
Drawings: Design Drawings / Sketches: Paul Rudolph Architect via LOC