The house of a thousand coins
Considering the large number of sizeable enterprises in Hong Kong, you can safely assume that there was hardly a company’s founder whose wealth wasn’t based on opium smuggling, however great a philanthropist he afterwards became. But more skeletons were to be found in the cupboards of Jardine Matheson than anywhere else. While William Jardine was in London pulling political strings, James Matheson, remained in Hong Kong taking care of their thriving business. Their warehouse was the first stone building erected on Hong Kong Island, and their company was responsible for more than half of the total sales of opium exported through the port of Canton (now Guangzhou) to China during the second half of the 19th century. It is hardly surprising that Jardine Matheson shifted their corporate headquarters to Bermuda shortly before the handover in 1997, assuming that the Chinese might not treat them as kindly as the British had. But now that’s all water under the bridge and today the company is located in Bermuda, for tax purpose only, while the administration is back at Jardine House in Central.
The building with the circular windows, originally known as Connaught Centre, was built in 1973 on reclaimed land bought at auction in 1970. Within just 16 months, a 52-floor office building had been erected and was for many years Hong Kong’s tallest skyscraper.
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Address 1, Connaught Place, Central | Public Transport MTR Island Line (blue), Central Station, Exit A | Tip Walking around in the district between Pedder Street and Ice House Street up to Exchange Square, reveals the size of the property empire belonging to Hongkong Land, a subsidiary company of Jardine Matheson.
The façade was originally covered with white tiles but these began to fall off, so instead of replacing them the building was encased in an aluminum cladding with the by-now characteristic circular windows. The round windows are a reference to “moon gates,” which play an important role in traditional Chinese architecture. Because of the central role that the company has played in the economic development of Hong Kong, Jardine House is called (among other less polite things) “The House of a Thousand Coins.”
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