Malls and mansions

Hong Kong had never seen anything like it. When Harbour Terminal opened in 1966, it was the first fully enclosed, air-conditioned shopping mall in Asia. More than a hundred shops lined its polished floors, selling everything from clothing to coins to fancy fruit baskets. A few years later, a series of nearby warehouses were demolished to make way for Harbour City, an even larger, more elaborate retail palace.

Since then, Hong Kong’s malls have only grown in size and number. “Hong Kong is a city of malls,” says Stefan Al, a Dutch architect and the author of Mall City: Hong Kong’s Dreamworlds of Consumption, which documents the evolution of Hong Kong’s retail complexes. While some malls are filled with the same chain stores you will find anywhere else, many others are full of surprises.

In a way, the city’s history of malls goes back even further than Harbour Terminal. As Hong Kong’s population boomed in the 1950s, developers built huge buildings with fanciful names: Mirador Mansions, 'Champagne Court, Chungking Mansions'. Upstairs were apartments; downstairs, shopping arcades. In most cases, the word 'mansions' is a euphemism: they are far from polished. But they have always provided a haven for independent, family-owned businesses, and they serve as interesting counterpoints to Hong Kong’s flashy shopping centres.

Today, these malls and mansions represent the full spectrum of Hong Kong’s experience, from grit to glitz, with plenty of fascinating products and delicious food in between. Of all the city’s districts, it’s Yau Tsim Mong that offers the densest concentration of these varying shopping havens. If you start at the Star Ferry, pass through Tsim Sha Tsui and make your way north through Yau Ma Tei and Mong Kok, you can hop from mall to mansion, each one different from the last. It’s more than retail therapy — it’s a cultural experience.

Start with the original. Today, Harbour City spans two million square feet, and it takes at least 15 minutes to walk from one end to the other. You can browse through 450 shops, grab a bite at 60 restaurants or catch a movie at the cinema. You don’t even have to spend any money to enjoy the place: Harbour Terminal recently unveiled a new five-storey expansion with public observation decks that offer an unparalleled view of the harbour. With an open view to the west, it’s one of the best spots to watch the sunset in Hong Kong.

Walk west under the enormous camphor trees of Haiphong Road and you’ll discover a new generation of malls that have opened in more recent years. In most other cities, shopping malls sprawl over a huge amount of land, but in space-deprived Hong Kong, malls go up. The ONE rises 29 storeys, with shops and restaurants on every floor, along with a public sky garden on level 16. Not far away, iSquare soars up 31 floors, with bars and restaurants on the upper levels — including some with terraces that offer sweeping views of the city.

The vertical thrust of these malls has led to some innovations. “[Their] tentacles reach deep into the ground to attach to subway systems, or bind to other malls with an ivy-like mesh of sky bridges,” writes Stefan Al in his book. That’s certainly true of Langham Place, which has become a centre of gravity in the busy shopping district of Mong Kok. If you venture four storeys up, you’ll discover a huge glass atrium filled with cafes, which is traversed by a dizzying 76-metre-long 'expresscalator' that takes you up a further five storeys. From there, you can explore The Spiral, a curving arcade that stretches from the ninth floor up to the 12^th .

And then there are the mansions and their treasure troves of eclectic small businesses and colourful, sometimes mysterious tenants and customers. Tsim Sha Tsui has an especially strong concentration, and you don’t need to walk far before coming across one of their shopping arcades. In some cases, they provide a convenient link between two places, like Daily House, which connects tree-lined Haiphong Road with the bars and restaurants of Ashley Road.

If you happen to stumble into the shopping arcade of Wing Lee Building on Kimberley Road, you’ll come across Dol Dam Gil, a long-standing Korean restaurant. The restaurant’s ground floor is unassuming, but head upstairs and you will find a leafy terrace bordered by a picturesque stone wall. It’s a surprise, but then again, Hong Kong’s malls and mansions are full of those.