Architectural Office, Public Works Department
Government Hill, Central
1954-1959
Following World War II, the Hong Kong Government sought new administrative offices to accommodate its expanding and increasingly complex bureaucracy. More efficient facilities represented a means of conveying more efficient governance and administrative control over the colony. The Central Government Offices were subsequently designed by the Government’s Public Works Department and completed in three stages between 1953 and 1959.
The complex consists of three major sections organized along a main east-west axis, including an east wing, a central Secretariat building, and a west wing. Each of the blocks was built at different times. The east block was built first, followed by the Secretariat. The west wing was completed in 1959. A series of aesthetic and material considerations help to visually bind the offices together, including concrete sunscreen gridding, white window frames, and granite facing. The site is accessible from both Queen’s Road and Lower Albert’s Road. It remains an important symbol of the Government’s renewed efforts to project a new, more rationalized vision of its own colonial authority through built form.
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Drawing, Central Government Offices (Hong Kong and Far East Builder, April 1956)
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Plan, Central Government Offices (Hong Kong and Far East Builder, April 1956)
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Detail, Central Government Offices (Courtesy Cole Roskam)
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West Wing, Central Government Offices (Courtesy Cole Roskam)