The intervention by Neri&Hu reorganizes a previously fragmented volume comprised of a street-level vehicular access, a wedge-shaped cantilevered volume, and an upper façade with a folded curtain wall. The inclined wedge is retained as an urban gesture, while the former zigzag profile evolves into a gently undulating surface.
Structurally, the façade is made up of terracotta pieces cast and extruded specifically for the project, arranged in a stepped, textile-inspired pattern that creates a three-dimensional texture. Each row of pieces rests on dark bronze-finished metal shelves, into which fused glass blocks are strategically inserted. The combination of ceramic, metal, and glass, along with the sculpted volume and the expressiveness of the terracotta, creates an envelope that reclaims local building traditions through a contemporary language.
The Urban Tapestry by Neri&Hu. Photograph by Zhu Runzi.
Project description by Neri&Hu
Located on Queen's Road in Hong Kong's vibrant Central district, Neri&Hu's design for the new Mandarin Oriental The Landmark façade establishes a distinctive, craft-driven presence within the urban skyline. Commissioned by Hong Kong Land as part of a broader vision to upgrade the Landmark complex, the renovation transformation provides the hotel with an architectural presence that reflects its evolving brand narrative.
While the hotel’s original location featured a long frontage, its identity was hidden behind a pleated curtain wall. Taking over the former location of the shuttered Harvey Nichols flagship store, the revamped hotel exterior had to comply with a unique set of restrictions pertaining to existing area footprints, pre-existing structural elements and inherited massing characteristics. The new “site” consisted of a ground level storefront meeting a vehicular drop off, an angled, cantilevered wedge-shaped volume defining part of its second-third floors and an upper-level façade with a zig-zag shaped curtain wall defining its fourth level and parapet. The challenge was to combine the existing fragmented conditions into one cohesive massing to offer the Mandarin Oriental The Landmark a new canvas to tell its own brand story.
The former retail flagship had treated the wedge-shaped volume as a “façade billboard”, expressing it as a vitrine displaying luxury goods. As the existing structural frame was something that had to be kept, the design team conceived the original site as a bodily frame that needed to be re-clothed. Neri&Hu’s design embraced the urban gesture of the slanted wedge and the folded glass facade, which offered a visual rupture from its urban context of staid glass towers, and reinforced that rupture by introducing solidity and mass. The concept is based on architectural theorist Gottfried Semper’s notion of the primitive textile wall as one of the four irreducible elements of architecture; Semper deviated from the conventional origins story of the primitive hut as the archetype underpinning architectural thinking and returned to the hung textile as a means of enclosure.
Rooted in the language of masonry construction, the design reinterprets solidity with a sense of tectonic lightness. The wedge-shaped volume is retained, but the pleated profile of the upper façade is transformed into an undulating surface of curved, shallow scallops. This pleated pattern stays in dialogue with the rest if the pleated curtain wall, yet introduces a departure with the curving geometry to establish a new language that signifies the hotel façade’s autonomy from the rest of the retail office complex. Composed of customized cast terracotta tiles and extruded, the façade's gently curved geometry forms a rhythmic staggered bond pattern inspired by woven textiles. Borrowing from the pleated pattern of the existing façade, the individual tiles are arrayed in a pleated zig-zag pattern to create a visual weave and grain to the urban tapestry. Thus, the façade remains in dialogue with the old, yet decidedly of its own novel spirit.
Each row of tiles is supported by a darkened bronze metal shelf with cast glass tiles sparsely interspersed. The glass accents are illuminated at night to create visual interest and depth. What unfolds is an urban tapestry—one that celebrates craftsmanship, joinery, and the city's rich traditions of intricate tile and metalwork. Its sculpted massing, opaque ceramic surfaces, and bold coloration are deliberately conceived to stand in elegant contrast to the surrounding glass towers, asserting a distinct presence within the urban skyline.
