About this collection
HSBC had grown to become the fourteenth-largest bank in the world by the start of the 1980s. Chairman Michael Sandberg commented that the head office at 1 Queen’s Road Central had become ‘a suit which one could no longer fit into’. A dynamic new headquarters was required and architect Norman Foster’s ground-breaking design provided just that. It required 27,000 tonnes of structural steel, one million square feet of cladding and up to 4,500 workers on site 24 hours a day. Photographs by Ian Lambot capture the construction of this iconic building, which opened in 1986. It remains a symbol of HSBC’s commitment to Hong Kong.
