Langham Place

The fabric of a city develops its texture through a process of assimilation and osmosis, with key innovations influencing and conditioning whatever may follow in their immediate surroundings. Thus Langham Place is already exercising a seminal effect on its environment in the Mong Kok district of Hong Kong’s rapidly changing Kowloon peninsula.

Initial planning for this project commenced in 1988, when the Land Development Corporation, pursuing its brief to promote renewal of the city’s deteriorating urban fabric, engaged Wong & Ouyang to work on the Master Plan for the area.

The Site where Langham Place now stands encompassed a miscellany of lots bounded by Argyle Street, Reclamation Street, Shantung Street and Portland Street, with Shanghai Street dividing the group into two areas known as Sites A and B. Site A adjoined Portland Street and Site B abutted on to Reclamation Street. A unified approach to redevelopment included the closure of lanes between the lots that ran parallel to Shanghai Street. Portions of Nelson Street between Portland Street and Reclamation Street were also closed off.