Getting to Know Chi Wing Lo

Dossier

4 Apr

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The Hong Kong-born, Europe-based multidisciplinary designer behind the newly reopened Regent Hong Kong reflects on his creative path and design philosophy

When Chi Wing Lo looks back on the path that led him to become the eminent multidisciplinary designer he is today, he categorically refrains from using the word ‘career’. Rather, he refers to his life’s work as an organic flow of projects and ‘things he’s passionate about’. At 68 years old, he still considers everything a learning experience.

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Lo now splits his time between Greece, Italy and Hong Kong. He spent his formative years abroad, first in the United States where he studied architecture at Harvard, and then in Italy, where he worked for design brand Giorgetti — serving as art director from 2004 to 2006 — before establishing his own furniture label, Dimensione Chi Wing Lo and more recently, accessories range 1ness. Interestingly, Lo avoids associating his work with any particular Asian sensibilities and, more generally, prefers to stay away from labels.

This freedom has come to define not only Lo’s multifaceted output — encompassing architecture, art, interior, furniture and product design — but also the way he approaches creating. ‘When I design, I always do it for myself and not to please someone else,’ he says. ‘Whether it’s a chair, a table or a space, I think about how I’m going to use it. It’s always my starting point, and I believe it’s the most honest and convincing way to design.’

Another of Lo’s principles is his vision of design as ‘total design’. Inspired by Wagner’s 19th-century concept of gesamtkunstwerk or ‘total work of art’, the notion stipulates that every element of a project, from the architecture, to the furniture and the art, should be designed as a coherent whole. ‘For the past ten to 15 years, I’ve only taken on projects for which I’m asked to realise both the architecture and the interior design,’ he says. ‘I feel like too many layers of translation are lost when the architecture and interior design are not realised as a whole. The project won’t come out to its full potential.’

In 2017, Lo was approached to redesign Hong Kong’s storied Regent hotel, which first opened in 1980. The ambitious project involved working on the property’s architecture, interior design and furniture and art curation. The Regent marks Lo’s first hotel project, and he appreciated the client’s bold vision and open-mindedness. ‘The project came just at the right time. If they had approached me five or ten years ago, I wouldn’t have been ready,’ he says. ‘I’ve been doing a lot of experimenting with technology, material research and new techniques on smaller projects, which allowed me to approach this large-scale one with a certain confidence.’

Lo was involved in the selection of the facade's material and the introduction of stone gardens and semi-reflective ceilings on the water-facing sides of the building, as well as the updated porte cochère and entrance.

The hotel’s reimagined interiors are understated yet decidedly modern. Lo subtly weaved in references to Beijing’s Forbidden City (as requested by the client), reinterpreted through a contemporary lens with elements such as cast glass brick walls in the lobby and stone gardens in the guest rooms’ outer windowsills. The design stands out for its rhythm and knots that, as Lo says, ‘are waiting to be discovered’ — an intention he upholds as a guiding design philosophy. ‘When you design to impress, it tends to fade away very quickly,’ he says. ‘I believe the most important value design can give to things is elevating ordinary materials with the way you compose them, and with the care you put into making them.’

Text by Nina Milhaud

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