After a chic makeover, the 1980s Regent in Kowloon has been reborn as a flagship hotel that makes the most of its spectacular harbourside location.
When Hong Kong-born designer Chi Wing Lo was handed the task of transforming a 1980s hotel – once billed as the best in the world – into something worthy of that title today, he opted against a fight.
After a two-year, $1.2 billion transformation overseen by Lo, who splits his time between Milan and Greece, it reopened last November. For Lo, the harbour serving as a real-life mural inside the hotel prompted him to treat the building like a gift-wrapped present.“Packages can be very impressive or very subdued so that the content speaks for itself,” he says. “So we have struck on an idea – maybe the package should be very unassuming so that the contents give the final say.”
The pursuit of a sense of space also prompted Lo’s riskiest move: to take a Regent requirement to use a colour palette inspired by China’s Forbidden City and chuck it out the window.“Of course I said no,” he says. Far from the rich colours and heavy fabrics of the hotel’s 1980s incarnation, Lo’s attitude is that less colour makes rooms seem bigger. And creates a sense of timelessness.
There is a Nobu restaurant on the second floor, and on the first floor a chic outpost of the city’s upmarket Steak House chain in a moody, wood-panelled room. The pick of truly extraordinary local fare is two-Michelin starred Lai Ching Heen Cantonese restaurant occupying a light-filled waterfront perch on the hotel’s ground floor, accessed through an opulent entranceway panelled in carved jade.
Australia Latest News, Australia Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Fight over car emissions is as stupid today as it was in the 1980sVested and political interests are using old arguments to slow or stop a change that will reduce our petrol bills and improve our air quality.
Read more »
Fight over car emissions is as stupid today as it was in the 1980sVested and political interests are using old arguments to slow or stop a change that will reduce our petrol bills and improve our air quality.
Read more »
Fight over car emissions is as stupid today as it was in the 1980sVested and political interests are using old arguments to slow or stop a change that will reduce our petrol bills and improve our air quality.
Read more »
Hong Kong court jails 12 for storming parliament in pro-democracy protestsSentences of nearly seven years handed down over 2019 action that was pivotal moment in uprising against Chinese rule
Read more »
Twelve sentenced to jail for storming Hong Kong legislature in 2019A Hong Kong court sentences 12 people to jail terms of up to almost seven years in a high-profile rioting case linked to a 2019 pro-democracy protest.
Read more »
Domestic workers in Hong Kong scared to speak up as rights dwindleTV series Expats has re-opened a conversation about the slave-like conditions of domestic helpers, mostly women from the Philippines and Indonesia, working for Hong Kong's rich.
Read more »