1 · Position
A Swire Properties complex on Tianhe Road, designed by Arquitectonica and opened in 2011: a shopping mall of more than 180 shops and restaurants, two Grade-A office towers, serviced apartments, a cultural centre and a Mandarin Oriental.
2 · Why it is in the Library
The hotel was the first five-star in Guangzhou — a city of many millions that did not have one until a developer built a mall and put one on top. That is the clearest statement in this group of what these complexes actually do: they do not add a hotel to a district, they make the district in which a hotel becomes possible.
3 · Candour
⚑ Thin. The current tenancy, the cultural centre's programme and the complex's performance are not established here. Swire also developed HKRI Taikoo Hui in Shanghai — LHL-S-184 The Louis and LHL-S-183 Starbucks Reserve Roastery Shanghai both stand inside it — and the relationship between the two Taikoo Hui projects is not set out in this entry.