Phillips' new Asia Headquarters, located next to M+ Museum in the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong, embraces the openness, flexibility, and innovative spirit that prepare Phillips to meet the changing demands of exhibitions and auction experiences.
Encompassing more than 50,000 sqft spreading across six floors, Phillips' new HQ is one of the largest auction houses in Asia that has galleries, an auction room, an event space, a café, a lounge, and offices.
The glass façade on the ground floor is maintained to create a sense of transparency and connection between the Artist Square and the gallery, engaging the public to enter the gallery and the auction room, which were once the privilege of the invited guests.
To accommodate the ever-changing demands of the auction house, LAAB designs a flexible space that can be reconfigured to cater to specific needs. Movable doors integrated in the thickened walls and columns can be pulled out to reconfigure the space from one setting to another, which is especially important to accommodate the demand of rapid spatial interchangeability during auction seasons. All infrastructure is meticulously concealed in the white ceilings, columns, walls, and solid oak floorings to accentuate and highlight the artwork.
In the post-COVID world where the digital has penetrated our lives in unprecedented ways, the auction experience has also gone online. The auction house at Phillips is conceived as an experimental ground that is equipped with all the infrastructure to integrate the physical and digital auction experiences.