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Object Timeline

  • We acquired this object.

2008

  • Work on this object began.

2015

2025

  • You found it!

Sheung Wan Hotel (unbuilt)

This is a Sheung Wan Hotel (unbuilt). It was designed by Heatherwick Studio and Thomas Heatherwick and made for (as the client) Lucid Rich, Kush. It is dated 2008.

How can a new building fit into the atmosphere of a busy old district of Hong Kong?
For this new forty-story hotel in Hong Kong’s Sheung Wan district, the studio wanted the building’s inside to relate to its outside. Every hotel room contains a familiar set of objects—bed, window, mini-bar, and safe— that the studio interpreted as a series of boxes. A set of four different-sized boxes form the furniture and fittings of each room and, as a result, the building’s façade is composed of the outsides of these thousands of boxes. Varying how far each box protrudes gives the building a rugged, textured facade that contrasts with the sleekness of most new buildings.

It is credited Courtesy of Heatherwick Studio.

This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition Provocations: The Architecture and Design of Heatherwick Studio.

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<ref name=CH>{{cite web |url=https://www-4.collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/85006481/ |title=Sheung Wan Hotel (unbuilt) |author=Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |accessdate=11 February 2025 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution}}</ref>