Designed by Ron Philips of the Public Works Department and completed in 1969, the former Murray Building on Cotton Tree Drive was one of Hong Kong's most debated examples of Brutalist civic architecture — its deep-set, diamond-patterned concrete facade conceived specifically to deflect the colony's fierce subtropical sun. That same brise-soleil grid, visible in the images as a receding field of white-painted pyramidal shadows, survived intact when Foster + Partners undertook the building's conversion into The Murray Hong Kong, which opened in 2018 with 336 rooms across 27 floors. The restoration preserved Philips's signature fenestration while adding arched colonnades at street level and a planted terrace that softens the podium's transition to Cotton Tree Drive — a sequence of white rendered arches and clipped hedging that brings an almost Mediterranean restraint to Central's dense financial district. Interior design by Foster + Partners and Wimberly Interiors established a palette that treats the building's geometry as its dominant decorative statement rather than something to work against. Guestrooms are fitted in pale linen headboards, graphite upholstered daybeds, and mustard velvet cushions against a ground of dark timber flooring and floor-to-ceiling city views — the harbour visible from upper floors, the surrounding skyline filling the glass on every other side. The restaurant, with its black marble floor, brass-toned ceiling fins, and red leather armchairs, draws warmth from materials rather than softness of form. Deepest in the building, a lap pool flanked entirely by living green walls provides the one space where the concrete geometry fully retreats.

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