Postmodern Reflections

Perspective sits down with one of the world’s most celebrated architects, Sir Terry Farrell, to talk about his views on Hong Kong’s accidental planning, his relationship with Nicholas Grimshaw – and his role in helping spies come in from the cold

- Richard Lord

For someone in Hong Kong to celebrate his mastery of urbanism, Sir Terry Farrell chooses to stay amid surprisingly bucolic surroundings when he’s here – at Park view. The legendary British architect and town planner, in Hong Kong in last autumn to give a lecture at the Asia Society, says he likes the walks around Tai Tam Reservoir and Parkview’s collection of art: several Salvador Dalís, for example, sit unregarded around the lobby and coffee shop where we meet, itself a riot of postmodern discordance that pleasingly resembles something Farrell himself might have come up with some 30 years ago.

His Asia Society speech marked his receipt of the Royal Town Planning Institute’s Gold Medal, a very big deal in urban planning: he is only the 15th recipient since the first one was handed out 64 years ago. “As a boy, my fantasy was to win gold in the Olympic marathon,” he says. “This, I felt, was at least the equivalent. It’s many marathons – 52 years of marathons.”