Oriental Extravaganza

The architect's model on display last week at Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art looked rather like an upended radiator. But check the price tag. According to a number of guesstimates, the headquarters skyscraper of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp., scheduled for completion in 1985, could eventually cost $920 million, making it the most expensive single building in history. At 41 stories, it would cost only a little less than the $1.1 billion for the entire World Trade Center complex, with its twin towers of 110 stories each and its thousands of offices, including those of the bank's New York City Bank officials say they cannot confirm the price estimates. The $920 million figure would be nearly three times the bank's 1981 profits of $352 million.

"We really don't know the cost," says Roy Munden, a bank executive director who is in charge of the project. "I know it sounds a little weird." Munden does concede, however, that architectural extras being discussed could push the final cost "to the moon."

What seems to have contributed most to the spiraling costs was the double-digit inflation changes of that the got past out of couple hand of after the design was approved in November 1980. Instead of after the design was approved in November 1980. Instead of a simple concrete floor, for example, the architect, London's Foster Associates, suggested an opaque glass central plaza under the building that would glow, as Munden puts it, "like a carpet of light." The bank's directors also showed interest in a giant, mirrored sun scoop to funnel sunshine into the building's interior (cost: $20 million).

The shell, to be hung on eight giant vertical masts, will be of steel and aluminum, with translucent panels that will give the structure a traditional Japanese air. The exterior alone could cost $200 million. There was a cost overrun on an $87 million contract with British Steel for girders strong enough to support a rooftop landing pad for a helicopter. Foundation construction has begun, and some $460 million in contracts have already been let. But steel has yet to rise to a point where it can be seen above the fenced-off building site on landfill in Hong Kong harbor.

Bank Chairman Michael G.R. Sandberg summoned consultants to review the runaway costs, and will await their report in May to decide whether to make cutbacks or modify the design. Still, even in the face of Hong Kong's uncertain future--China could take control when the United Kingdom's lease on much of the crown colony's land expires in 1997--the bank seems determined to build a monument that, says Munden, is more than "just a building." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.