Nina Tower
Designed to be the tallest building on earth, then grounded by an airport and split into a memorial for a kidnapped husband who never came home.
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The original plan was a single tower at 518 m — which would have topped every structure on earth. Airport height limits near Chek Lap Kok forced it down to 319.8 m and broke it into two towers: Nina (lower, 42 storeys) for Chinachem owner Nina Wang, and Teddy (higher, 80 storeys) for her husband Teddy Wang, who was kidnapped and disappeared. The building also skips every floor ending in "4" — too close to "death" in Mandarin — so 80 real floors produce a top floor labeled 89.
What to look for
- The 41st-floor sky lobby, the physical bridge connecting the two towers mid-building
- Elevator floor panels where every number ending in '4' is absent — a quiet reminder of how superstition shapes construction
- Nina Park, an urban fossil park tucked within the same development at ground level
Tsuen Wan West MTR station sits directly beside the complex; the hotel lobby, mall, and convention areas are open to walk through.
Nina Tower is one of 34 sights worth the detour in Hong Kong, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Hong Kong pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Hong Kong
- International Commerce CentreAt 484 m, this is the only building in Hong Kong with more than 100 floors — and it had to be trimmed down so it wouldn't overtop the surrounding mountains.
- Bank of China TowerThe first skyscraper outside the United States to break 1,000 feet — its glass triangles cut the Central skyline unlike anything around it.
- Central PlazaA four-bar neon clock 374 metres above Wan Chai changes colour every 15 minutes, blinking at each quarter-hour change.
- Hong Kong DisneylandThe only Disneyland where a walkway was deliberately bent so good qi energy would not drain into the South China Sea.
- The CenterAfter dark, hundreds of neon bars scroll slowly through the full color spectrum from base to crown — a light show wired into the steel itself.
- Tsing Ma BridgeThe span that ended Lantau Island's water-only isolation — 1,377 metres of road and rail hung from two towers.