The Murray Opens in a Converted 1969 Tower in Hong Kong

The Murray, Hong Kong, a Niccolo Hotel, opened in January 2018 on Cotton Tree Drive, between Hong Kong Park and the towers of Central. It occupies Murray Building, a government office block completed in 1969, which has been converted into a hotel of 336 rooms and suites by Foster + Partners.

The building, designed by the government architect Ron Phillips, is one of the best examples of modernist architecture in the city, and an early case of design shaped by climate. Its white facades are a grid of deeply recessed windows, each set at an angle so that direct sunlight does not strike the glass, which kept the offices cool long before energy efficiency became a requirement. At the base, three-storey arches carry the tower over the road that winds around it.

The government sold the building for conversion as part of Conserving Central, a programme to preserve a group of historic sites in the district, and the conditions of sale required that the exterior be kept. Foster + Partners retained the facade and the arches, opened the ground level to the street, which had been dominated by a car park, and extended the gardens. A very large old tree at the entrance, a protected specimen, was preserved and now rises through the forecourt. The rooms were planned around the unusual windows, which give each one a deep, angled bay.

The hotel opened with a rooftop restaurant and bar, Popinjays, with terraces on all sides, a Cantonese restaurant in a pavilion in the garden, a bar and a restaurant under the arches, and a spa. It was developed by Wharf, the Hong Kong property group, at a reported cost of more than HK$7 billion, and became the flagship of its Niccolo brand, which also operates Niccolo Chengdu and Niccolo Chongqing.

The Murray opened a few months before Tai Kwun, another Conserving Central project. Together they marked a change in a city that had usually demolished its older buildings. For visitors to Hong Kong, the hotel has a rare position: on the edge of the park, a short walk from the Peak Tram and from the offices of Central.