All great works start from a blank piece of paper, but seldom do they begin with such daunting and monumental expectations, as in the case of the futuristic edifice sitting restlessly on the harbour front. When the last of the bamboo scaffolding is shed and the thousands of tradesmen, busying themselves like soldier ants, pack up their tools, the giant spaceship-like extension to the Convention and Exhibition Centre can begin the final countdown for Hong Kong's big night. For the original architects who sat in front of blank pieces of paper 3.5 years ago, the June 1997 deadline must have seemed daunting. Time has been a scarce commodity, pressure a constant companion. Although the $4.8 billion complex was only confirmed as the venue for the handover ceremony last November, local architects Wong & Ouyang (HK) Limited and Chicago-based consultants Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM), had more than a sneaking suspicion the building was pre-destined for something special. During an initial interview, when a shortlist of eight firms were still vying for the conceptual design contract, Wong & Ouyang director Lam Wo-hei was asked by the then Secretary for Works Jim Blake if they could get the project completed by June of this year. The timing was not lost on Mr Lam or his colleagues. During the early brainstorming sessions, one of Mr Lam's most creative and influential team members was an articulate American, Larry Oltmanns, lead designer for SOM, who moved to Hong Kong in September 1993 to spend one year working alongside Wong & Ouyang. Mr Oltmanns, who still drops in on the territory to view the building's progress, claims he could not have been more nervous at the outset even if he had been aware it would provide the ceremonial backdrop to one of the closing news events of the 20th Century. He explained: 'To dare to try to symbolise a country at a point of history is already a very ambitious undertaking so I don't think the location of the ceremony there would have influenced us very much in terms of the form of the building. 'It was always going to be a symbol and centrepiece for the city. Its location in the harbour made that almost inevitable.' The realisation of the narrowest of tight schedules prompted him to take a large gulp. 'The gulp was because I realised what it would mean in terms of personal sacrifice that I and other people on the team would make in order to accomplish it. The work days during that first year were often 16 to 18 hours, seven days a week. 'Obviously, if it had been an ordinary building, it would have been easier, but here you have the other challenge of not only finishing on time, but finishing something which is aspiring to so much. 'The real pressure starts with the day you are staring at a blank sheet of paper. You realise three-and-a-half years from now that blank sheet of paper has to be transformed into an idea, a form, a structure, a whole myriad of systems that overlap and work together. 'It has to be done to a budget, it has to be approved by all the different agencies and groups that are responsible for reviewing it. It has to be buildable and logistically at some point you have to make it happen.' After winning the contract, the team went on a whirlwind tour of conference facilities in the US to get ideas, and Mr Lam recalls spelling out his vision. 'I told Larry the design had to be so unique and symbolic that even if you were to reduce it to the size of a postage stamp it should stand out. We all agreed it had to be distinctive, even if reduced to a much smaller scale. 'Now I understand the Government is considering publishing a postage stamp of it. So I am very happy that what we chatted about in September 1993 might be realised.' In those first four months, the team were consumed with ideas, some of which came to them as they slept, ate and showered. They became origami experts, shaping miniature card models, forwarding new ideas which were successively rejected to be improved or scrapped. The man sending them back to the drawing board was Dr Victor Fung, the former chairman of the Trade Development Council, who both Mr Lam and Mr Oltmanns claim was the inspirational driving force. Mr Lam recalled: 'He was the one who kept saying no, not good enough, not good enough. For 12 weeks from the end of November, through Christmas, through Chinese New Year, we were struggling for an answer. The whole team worked on many, many alternatives. But they were all rejected by the chairman. He said you guys have got to work harder. 'At one point, somebody suggested in a meeting, 'Why don't you just put a flat roof over it and forget about trying to make it too expensive and difficult?' I said, 'Do you realise the scale of this project? It will be taller than Star House and it has the length of the Ocean Terminal building. Imagine putting such a big box in Victoria Harbour, what the reaction of the public will be'.' Mr Oltmanns added: 'Victor Fung was very inspirational, no question about it. Many clients would have been satisfied much earlier than he was. But he had a very high standard in terms of what the building should aspire to and he never lowered that standard.' It was on a boat trip when the group visited some remote outlying islands, that Mr Oltmanns claims he literally stumbled on the flight idea. He said: 'We were thinking about dragons, the bauhinia and all sorts of ways to symbolise Hong Kong's transition and optimism for the future. 'We went for a walk on this island and I happened to find this little piece of broken pottery with a phoenix painted on it. It was the first time the idea of flight occurred to me as a source of inspiration for the form of the building.' Mr Lam prefers to think of an evolution of ideas rather than an isolated flash of inspiration. He said: 'It was a painstaking process, rather than inspiration suddenly falling off a tree. I think each of us in the team had our own little moments whether it was in the shower or boating in Cheung Chau or Lantau and those ideas are all contained. 'More important was that when we hit on the right idea, everybody worked towards it. When the general design was accepted we zeroed in on the final solution.' He added: 'I think the breakthrough came when we accepted the need for symmetry and accepted that the volume and shape of the roof must generally reflect the volume inside. If the structure and the volume inside are working together, which is what architects aim for, the form should relate to the function.' The 1.67 million sq ft complex more than resembles the 'strength and symmetry of a bird taking off over water'. Mr Lam said: 'We tried to create the effect of movement using the lines of the building. It reacts to the movement of the water and the contrast that we would like to create against the very linear buildings in Wan Chai.' Fundamentally and not by accident the building points to the north, the mainland and Hong Kong's future. Mr Oltmanns said: 'The fact that it's towards the north is the realisation of an opportunity. We didn't necessarily have to set up a north-south axis. It could have been uni-directional or non-directional, or even oriented east-west. But we could not ignore the symbolic content of somehow addressing the north. 'We had almost endless discussions about what was the proper treatment for a forum that's facing towards the north. Right now, architecturally the fashion is for forms that are angular and aggressive and it is an attitude that really permeates the profession and the way that form is established today. Obviously from a symbolic point of view that is problematic. 'You want to be oriented towards the north but you want to present an aspect which is friendly, welcoming and somehow sympathetic. I think you can see it is a very soft and gentle form, and that of course was intentional.' The team also had to grapple with practical limitations including a lack of space to locate all the exhibition halls on a single floor, something universal in all similar facilities. Instead they incorporated ramps big enough to get the largest lorries on to all floors. By March 1993, Dr Fung signalled the team was moving in the right direction. Shortly afterwards, the conceptual study phase was concluded and Wong & Ouyang were officially appointed as architects and engineers to the project. The architects then moved on site and embarked on a 'fast-track schedule', continuing to design as the building started. Mr Oltmanns said: 'The challenge for an architect there is that you are making decisions every step of the way that you have to live with as you develop other details of the building. 'In spring of 1994, the contractors started the reclamation and shortly afterwards started installing the foundations. Meanwhile, we were still designing the configuration of the spaces and trying to fix the location of all the columns. 'There are a whole host of specialised points of view that all have their impact on the design and have to be somehow incorporated as you go without changing any of the things you have made decisions on. Once the foundations are in, you are not going to move a column.' Mr Oltmanns hopes the Hong Kong public will admire the building's interior as much as the exterior. 'My concern was always that when you entered the building you didn't feel let down. When you entered the building you should be crossing a threshold, you should find an element of surprise. 'I think people will be enormously surprised by the whiteness and the grandness and really the simple beauty of the spaces. They are not developed in a very ornate way. They have a simplicity and strength to them, which allows them to act as a setting in which to view the harbour. 'From the Grand Foyer there is a remarkable 180-degree panoramic view of the city and harbour through curved 40-metre tall glass walls. That's also a space that is used to enter the convention hall. Compared with other similar facilities, I don't think there's any parallel anywhere in the world.' Mr Oltmanns believes the organisers of the handover ceremony have planned a 'wonderful procession' through the building. He said: 'It really realises the potential of the building to be seen as an unfolding series of events. As you move vertically through the building and also horizontally towards the harbour, it is very much the way we thought about people moving through the building.' He is also aware that Prince Charles, Britain's top representative at the ceremony, is not shy of volunteering his opinion, not always favourable, on architectural matters. Mr Oltmanns said: 'Our firm is very aware of his views. A few years ago we were very active in London. I understand his preoccupation with trying to reinforce the fabric of London, which is a fantastic quilt of historical buildings. 'Hong Kong is very different. In terms of the buildings that exist here, you are looking at a very narrow period of time. Of course, being the kind of dynamic city that it is, people have a tendency to build, tear down and rebuild in remarkably short periods of time. This would be extraordinary in the United States, in Europe it's impossible to conceive of. So I have got to believe that he would be favourable to the building in the sense that it is sensitive to the fabric of the city. 'In the end, you have to consider the public and the government as your clients. You may be interacting with a small group of people, but ultimately your work and your self worth as an architect are going to be judged by everyone.' Mr Lam agreed: 'The most important thing is whether the public likes it. Every time that one of our projects is near completion, you always have this anxiety . . . it's like the opening night of an opera. Will people like it, will they clap, or will they boo? No matter how great you think it is, it's in the eye of the beholder.' Both are keen to stress the themes of functionality and value-for-money. Mr Oltmanns said: 'The cost per square metre for Tokyo Forum is about three times the cost [of the convention centre's extension]. What is easy to forget is that this is actually a very practical, pragmatic, functional, reasonably priced building. It wasn't built for an extraordinary amount of money, in fact the cost is very comparable to buildings of a lower quality and much lower prominence in many parts of the world. 'It's easy to create an impressive statement with an unlimited budget but to me that's a sculpture. When you talk about a great building you are talking about a structure that balances functionality, cost and visual greatness and I guess in rare cases significance.' The complex will also be the first landmark not to come out of the private sector. It is also intended to be the territory's signature building, as synonymous with Hong Kong as the Opera House is with Sydney. Mr Oltmanns said: 'The character of Hong Kong Island is vertical with a series of very slender tall towers, that are the backdrop to this building, which is horizontal. Where the others are made of angles, the convention centre is a curve. But there's a sympathy there between the two. 'We also did our best to avoid being fashionable. On the contrary, what you need to look for in a symbol and a landmark is the quality of being timeless, it has to transcend fashion, transcend pre-occupations of the moment.' The American architect is constantly in awe of the territory's famed work-rate. 'No one can build in the world like you build in Hong Kong, the pace is unbelievable. In the space of a month, the changes are extraordinary. 'We give credit to the architects, but very often it was the dedication of the workers and their desire to create quality and to pay attention to details and to work carefully and fast.' A testing experience for an architect is to step inside, for the first time, a building that was a small plastic model. Mr Oltmanns said: 'I suppose for a lot of people it is a leap of faith, to go from a model to reality, especially when reality is 300 metres long and 50 metres tall. For any artist or architect there's always a moment of doubt as to whether what you imagined is actually what it is. 'You have models, drawings, renderings, elevations and details. But the true test is to be inside, to walk and to turn your head and to see it as a three-dimensional reality. The anxiety is really in testing the accuracy of your imagination.'