Palmer and Turner (P&T Group) Project Archives 巴馬丹拿項目檔案

The Palmer and Turner (P&T Group) project archives consists of architectural plans and negatives covering 15 projects created between the late 1950s and late 1980s and comprising approximately 4,000 architectural drawings and around 500 photographs and slides. These documents afford insight especially into the development of contemporary architecture in Hong Kong across the second half of the 20th century.

The majority of the projects represented are important markers of Hong Kong’s architectural and urban developments. These include public housing estates such as Choi Hung Estate (1959-1964) and Clague Garden Estate (1984-1989) developed at different stages of Hong Kong’s history of public housing. Choi Hung was built by the housing authority in response to the tremendous influx of refugees from post-1949 China and set a new standard for low-cost housing. Clague Gardens, on the other hand, was a project in the 1980s built by the Housing Society that conceived new designs for its towers and communal grounds based on a pinwheel plan, with open staircases and corridors to provide clear views and which freed the ground level for landscaping, playgrounds and amenities.

Projects such as the Hilton Hotel (1961-1962), the former AIA Headquarters on Stubbs Road (1965-1967), Connaught Centre (now Jardine House) (1970-1972) represent the major commercial and tourist landmarks conceived during Hong Kong’s tourism and economic boom. The 1,000 room Hilton Hotel was the first in Hong Kong to integrate two floors of shopping arcade, with the lobby on the third level. Designed by interior designers Dale and Pat Keller and graphic designer Henry Steiner, Hilton Hotel set the standard for the design of a five-star hotel in Hong Kong and was a site for international events for decades until its demolition in 1996. Connaught Centre – Hong Kong’s tallest building when completed in 1973 – included the architect’s strategic proposal of providing an overhead pedestrian bridge to link the nascent reclaimed land site to the retail centre of Central – in order to get a bonus plot ratio - also led to the influential use of the overhead bridge network across Central. The collection also contains projects representing Hong Kong’s cultural landmarks like the Hong Kong Arts Centre, and structurally inventive designs like Electric House: Kennedy Road Substation (1967-1970). Electric House was a particularly significant project to architect James H. Kinoshita as it was a structurally intelligent yet expressive building that not only fulfilled the most pragmatic function of an electric substation but became the headquarter of Hong Kong Electric.

The collection reflects Kinoshita’s expertise in hotel design, and P&T’s involvement with designing some of the most prestigious and pioneering hotel designs in Asia – namely the new wing of Bangkok Oriental Hotel (1972), Bali Hyatt (1973), Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Jakarta (1979) and Jinling Hotel (1979-1983) in Nanjing. The success of the Bangkok Oriental made it an important precedent for marrying five-star accommodation standards with an immersive experience of tropicality and modernist structure. As China’s very first modern 800-room hotel and Nanjing’s tallest structure, Jinling Hotel was designed to reflect Chinese cultural heritage by introducing elements of Chinese forms in the building’s plan. The project set the standard of architectural design and hotel development in early-reform era China, particularly on the level of achieving quality in construction and finishing. Jakarta Mandarin Hotel (1979) and Shell Tower (formerly known as John Little Building) represent P&T’s role in shaping the face of Singapore’s and Jakarta’s central business district.

M+ is committed to the preservation and to the arrangement and description of the Palmer and Turner (P&T Group) Project Archive to the highest international standards. This is a substantial project; as sections of the archive are catalogued, they will be made available on the M+ Collections website.

The Palmer and Turner Project Archives were donated to M+ by P&T Group (formerly known as Palmer and Turner) in 2020.


See also Palmer and Turner (P&T Group) Collection in The University of Hong Kong Libraries, projects listed on the Digital Repository @ HKUL: https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/pnt.