On the Bond Centre (now Lippo Centre), Hong Kong

"Hong Kong is an entirely different project. It is interesting in that it's being built on somebody else's foundations, and, therefore, the planning of Hong Kong is determined by foundations already poured in place. The owners changed because of the relationship with Red China and everybody got scared. They are totally commercial office buildings, unlike Jakarta, and therefore the ground rules are very different. Also there are multiplicities of owners, unlike Dharmala, which is a corporate headquarters. It is like home to them, and, therefore, they take great interest in it. It's not that they don't take an interest in the Hong Kong projects. It's just that the ground rules are very, very different, about what you can and cannot do. The Hong Kong project is two towers and I wanted to connect them with interlacing bridges. I don't know whether you've ever seen any of those sketches or not. They wouldn't let me do that. The reason for that was the prime developer/owner said that he made a substantial part of his fortune in textiles in Indonesia as a matter of fact. He said all of his factories had interconnecting bridges that take material and people from one part to the other. He didn't want these office buildings to look like that. I was really disappointed. I couldn't get around that argument though I did try."

Interview with Robert Bruegmann, 1986