New Zealander films building of ‘world’s most ambitious bank’

Press, 15 July 1983, Page 22

New Zealander films building of ‘world’s most ambitious bank’

NZPA staff correspondent Hong Kong

Last week a New Zealand documentary maker, Mr Keith Hawke, filmed as a tunnel several hundred metres long was blasted to bring water from Hong Kong’s harbour to flush the toilets of what has been described as the world’s most ambitious bank building.

At other times Mr Hawke and his crew have perched on cranes several storeys high, or watched jackhammers tear the floor away, literally from under their feet, to record the progress of the new Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation building. Mr Hawke, originally of Christchurch, secured a contract worth about SHKS million (?NZI.2 million) — the biggest for a documentary in the colony — to film the development. The Hong Kong and Shanghai, or “The Bank,” as it is known locally, is one of the institutions, along with the Governor, the Jockey Club and the long-estab-lished trading house of Jardine and Matheson, which effectively runs Hong Kong. Apparently unfazed by the collapse of the Hong Kong property market last year, which has left dozens

of building projects mothballed or on go-slow, the bank has pushed ahead with what is planned to be a 41storey edifice covering a city block.

The cost of the building has risen from an original estimate of SHK2 billion to the current “guestimate” of SHK6 billion. Some say that the cost could go as high as SHKIO billion. However, for New Zealanders familiar with the Bank of New Zealand saga, the fact that the building is only six months behind schedule after three years, and is expected to be completed in another two, is impressive. Mr Hawke’s involvement with the project began with the destruction of the company’s old headquarters. “They wrapped the entire building in polythene, started at the top and began with jackhammers, throwing the bits down the liftwells,” he said. “It was incredibly dangerous. They had to stop work to let us get in position on the top floor. Then we filmed while the jackhammers were pounding the floor away from round our feet.”

The filming would continue to be difficult, said Mr Hawke, though so far the crew had suffered no acci-

dents. This week’s filming of the sea-water tunnel typified the scale of the project, he said. “Hong Kong uses sea water for toilet flushing and cooling because of the shortage of fresh water. But the bank building is so big it had to lay on its own supply.” Construction workers are drilling a tunnel 100 m deep near the harbour, which will then run for several hundred metres under the city’s underground railway line to the bank site.

“The building is a radical architectural departure from anything previously attempted,” said Mr Hawke.

Designed by the English architect, Mr Norman Foster, who recently won the highest British architectural award, the bank is being constructed around eight huge steel masts.

Cranes mounted inside the masts jack themselves up as the building goes up floor by floor. “They’ve used the best possible suppliers from around the world,” said Mr Hawke.

German-built, glass-lined lifts will reveal their workings, while the floor panels, mounted on small pillars, are levelled by laser beams and can be shifted to provide new configurations. Architect-imposed stress tests meant that the concrete floor blocks for the basement area had to be cast several times until the right mixture was arrived at.

Outside, glass cladding for the building was typhoon-tested in St Louis, Missouri and other wind tunnel tests took place in Canada.

The air conditioning and plumbing services have been pre-assembled in Japan and will be attached to the building in modular units on each storey.

To make sure under-floor services could be assembled quickly on site, a giant mock-up of the services was built on one of Hong Kong’s outer islands so that workers could practice assembling the units and sort out any problems. The steel “Christmas tree” masts, which are welded together level by level, came from England.

For Mr Hawke, who has lived in Hong Kong for five years, filming the project remains a challenge as well as source of revenue.

“It’s the biggest contract ever heard of in Hong Kong in documentary terms,” he said. “But the money is spread over five years and costs are high here. We have to do a lot of other work to maintain a high turnover.”

Among other projects, Mr Hawke has sold a series on the colony’s tourist attractions to 11 major hotels for in-house television and has been commissioned to do a similar series aimed at visiting businessmen for the airline, Cathay Pacific. Other projects include a series of documentaries on contemporary Asia and an unusual film on Hong Kong’s urban services. Mr Hawke, who left New Zealand in the late 60s after being Dunedin TV2’s first cameraman, worked in Singapore and then Australia before spending two years working for a Hong Kong feature film company. “Doing business in Hong Kong with the Chinese is.

much different from dealing with Europeans,” he said. “The competition here can be pretty fierce ... I’m a lot more cautious here about talking of jobs which haven’t been signed and sealed.

“You have to watch your back.”

He cited the example of one local film-maker who owned a lot of equipment, including a 35mm camera which he seldom used.

“When he does want it, his crew tells him it’s in for repair so he hires another one. He doesn’t realise that the crew has it out on hire for themselves." But Mr Hawke said his own Chinese crew had proved very loyal.

“Sometimes we have misunderstandings but it’s usually a language problem — and I’m usually wrong.”

Everyone in Hong Kong was looking for a bargain, he said.

“If you’re trying to sell someone the idea for a film they want to know exactly how each bit of their money will be spent. They suggest you use two actors instead of three. They offer to supply a car rather than be charged for the use of your driver . . . “You have to learn how to compromise.

“But it’s a very stimulating place to do business,” he said.

“I start work at 8 a.m. and finish at 7 p.m. and I love what I do.

“But then, some of my crew work for me during the day then go and do another shift on a Chinese feature at night. “I’m working short hours by Hong Kong Chinese standards.”