Asian design celebrated in Hong Kong architect’s vivid new book that offers an insightful discourse on Eastern aesthetics, culture and heritage
- William Lim, founder of CL3, is marking his firm’s 30th anniversary with a book highlighting how Asian design has become an established style in its own right
- It includes conceptual sketches, original drawings, paintings and floor plans of Lim’s own work to offer a deeper insight into his creative process
When award-winning architect and artist William Lim set up his multidisciplinary studio CL3 in 1992, he says he positioned the firm as “being good at doing East meets West – combining Eastern aesthetics with Western comfort”.
Fast-forward three decades and Asian design has become an established style in its own right – which is what Lim’s new book, East Meets East: Contemporary Asian Design, sets out to highlight.
“I am Asian and most of our clients and users are from Asia. We design in the East, for the East, and that’s how I came up with the title,” says Lim, who settled back in Hong Kong in 1987 after studying architecture at Cornell University in the US.
Visually arresting with a fluorescent orange cover and royal blue pages, the new book is a vivid pictorial celebration of Asian design; an insightful discourse on Eastern aesthetics, culture and heritage and their place in contemporary architecture; and a comprehensive record of projects to mark the 30th anniversary of CL3.
Although the book is published by Rizzoli, renowned Italian purveyors of stunning photographic tomes, Lim stresses his title isn’t a coffee-table book. He was adamant from the start that it should be meaningful, both in Asia and in the rest of the world, and not be a typical hardback book with glossy pages.
“I wanted to create something casual and friendly, with a clean graphic style and relevant content that supports an understanding of how we design in the East,” he says. “The book is a real mishmash [of sketches, photographs and projects] but it is very true to what I wanted to portray.”
With writer Catherine Shaw on board to help with the editorial, Lim enlisted the expertise of art director and graphic designer Stanley Wong (also known as anothermountainman).
Thanks to meticulous record-keeping by Lim and his team, Wong was able to draw on a rich archive of photographs of Lim’s past projects.
In Hong Kong, these include detailed images of hotels like East in Tai Koo Shing and The Park Lane Hotel in Causeway Bay; restaurants such as the Yung Kee in Central; and candid street scenes featuring installations such as Lantern Wonderland (2011), Lim’s giant fish structure that was made out of 2,000 Chinese red-fabric lanterns and constructed in Victoria Park.
It started to get complicated, Lim says, when Wong decided the book should also contain conceptual sketches, original drawings, paintings and floor plans to offer the reader a deeper insight into Lim’s creative process.
Luckily for all concerned, not only had Lim kept hundreds of his student notebooks and drawings but his original sketches were also exceptionally well preserved.
“Anybody can look at my projects on the internet but usually this only shows the end result. Stanley felt that people would love to see my sketches as they’d never been published before. We wanted to create something different with a personal touch,” Lim says.
“It was a considerable task for him to go through everything to find the perfect images but as he hadn’t worked on the projects, he came to them with a fresh eye.”
As a youth Lim had wanted to become an artist, but in the 1970s few considered art a proper profession for a respectable Chinese man, so he studied architecture instead.
His passion for art endures to this day, although he has never had any formal training. Lim and his wife, Lavina, are also avid art collectors and donated 90 artworks by Hong Kong and Asian artists from their personal collection to the M+ museum, which also features briefly in the new book.
The foreword of the book was written by Lars Nittve, the first executive director of M+.
Nittve recounts in a very personal way his first meetings with Lim and how he feels that Lim personifies the Asian approach to design by refusing to be compartmentalised.
The book lets the images do the talking. Projects are not in chronological order but appear in six thematic chapters – “Milestones”, “Heritage”, “Craft”, “Urbanism”, “Lifestyle” and “Utopia” – each preceded by an explanatory essay by Lim.
In “Urbanism”, for example, he describes the challenges of designing for high-density, multilayered Asian cities and the necessity for creative, multifunctional solutions that respect existing urban conditions while also gently transforming them.
In this chapter he also showcases what he calls “one of the most important projects of my career”: the design of H Queen’s and H Code, two buildings in the heart of Central that have stimulated the emergence of a new art district.
“Creating the book was like having a second job, but it energised rather than exhausted me,” Lim says.
“We worked through the pandemic with everyone in different places so everything took longer to achieve. The book is a testament to the power of trust in difficult times.
“When I was a student, it was like a pilgrimage to go to the Rizzoli store in New York City so it is amazing to have a book published by them.”
A book signing for “East Meets East”, by William Lim (Rizzoli), will take place at M+ Shop on October 22 from 3pm-4pm.
