‘Like an ocean liner hitting an iceberg’: architect of Regent Hong Kong hotel renovation on having to go back to the drawing board halfway in, and his vision
- Chi Wing Lo is the architect behind the renovation of the Regent Hong Kong. He talks about the risk the owners took commissioning him, and surprise budget cuts
- He reveals why he felt ‘silently blessed’ by his spells in coronavirus quarantine and why it's the small details of design that matter when it comes to comfort
Hong Kong-born Chi Wing Lo is indubitably a design superpower. But when the owners of the Regent Hong Kong came calling about renovating the Tsim Sha Tsui hotel – rebranded the InterContinental in 1980 – he was shocked to be asked, he says.
“My initial meeting with [hotel owners] the Gaw family in August 2019 went a bit like this. Client: ‘Have you ever designed a hotel before?’ Me: ‘Never,’” recalls Lo, whose humorous self-deprecation and infectious giggle are instant icebreakers. “I recognised that this was a huge risk for them to take, which rarely happens in Hong Kong.”
Although his path to architectural greatness was somewhat winding – he did poorly at school and took jobs on construction sites before eventually working his way to a master’s in architecture from Harvard – he has designed commercial and residential projects all over the world, including his own home in Athens, Greece.
He teaches and lectures in architecture; has created 42 collections of furniture for Italian firm Giorgetti; and has his own high-end furniture brand, Dimensione Chi Wing Lo. He is also an accomplished sculptor.
