Media has revealed a Danish citizen as the buyer of the priciest flat up until now in Asia.
Daniel Aaxman, a company director with a Danish passport, has, according to Land Registry records in Hong from early June, through his company Lead Connection, paid HK$497.9 million, or HK$95,971 per square foot, for the duplex flat A on the ground and first floors of Opus Hong Kong at 53 Stubbs Road.
Opus, a 12-storey, super-deluxe property completed in 2012, has been dubbed Hong Kong’s most expensive apartment block. It is Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry’s first residential building in Asia and features an unusual twisted shape. Each unit has floor-to-ceiling windows and commands 360-degree views of Victoria Harbour and Mount Cameron.
“I couldn’t believe sites like this are still available. This is a one-in-a-million.” Frank Gehry comments on the property.
Stubbs Road, a winding hillside road that climbs from Happy Valley to The Peak, has long been the setting for Hong Kong’s most exclusive homes. Number 53 has been in the hands of Swire Properties for over 60 years as a home for a company executive.
Its remarkably secluded position, its unspoilt terrain and its panoramic views across the city and Victoria Harbour convinced the company to commission a new residential property for the location. Swire Properties believed the rare and prestigious site required a respected global architect with a wholly original approach who shared the company’s belief that great architecture can change our lives for the better.
From its vantage point on The Peak Area, Opus Hong Kong is surrounded by forest yet it overlooks the financial heart of Hong Kong.
Frank Gehry has created some of the world’s most influential and iconic buildings. When he completed the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, in 1997, the veteran American architect Philip Johnson described it as “the greatest building of our time.”
Over the past decade, Gehry has dazzled the world with such extraordinary creations as the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the New York by Gehry apartment building in New York City, and the New World Symphony Concert Hall in Miami.
During the 1980s Gehry began to experiment with new forms to develop what would become his signature style. The result was an expressionist take on Modernism with spiraling lines and animated shapes that had never been seen in architecture before. The Vitra Design Museum in Germany is an early example, while the Guggenheim Bilbao is the apotheosis of the style. Gehry’s reputation was sealed when he followed up the Guggenheim Bilbao with the sensational Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles – a mesmerising design of sculptural curves and folds which has become a global architectural landmark. He is now one of the world’s most sought-after architects, winning distinguished awards such as the Pritzker Prize and the RIBA Gold Medal.
Source: South China Morning Post
Shanghaiist.com
Opus Hong Kong
