Leigh & Orange Architects

Leigh & Orange Ltd, founded in Hong Kong in 1874, is an international architectural and interior design practice. The group has a total of 550 staff and operates through its headquarters in Hong Kong with branch offices in Shanghai, Beijing, Fuzhou and Qatar.

Founded in Hong Kong in 1874, Leigh & Orange began as a company called Sharp & Danby. It took two decades and four name changes, including Danby & Leigh and Danby, Leigh & Orange, for the firm to evolve step by step, into Leigh & Orange. The company first started off by Mr Granville Sharp (1825–1899), a businessman who had been sent out to the colony of Hong Kong to open a branch of the Commercial Bank of India. The story of Granville Sharp (a distant cousin of the famous Conversation Sharp), and of his wife Matilda (in whose name Granville set up the Matilda Hospital, Hong Kong) is told in Joyce Smith's book. Having "enormous faith in the future of Hong-Kong", Granville Sharp had morphed into a major land dealer and acquired the nickname "the notorious professional philanthropist and champion land jobber". Connections were key to success. One close friend of Sharp's, Sir Paul Chater, helped support the firm with commissions. Another fellow member of the Masonic Lodge was the newly arrived William Danby (1842–1908), a qualified engineer and architect who worked as Clerk of Works in the Surveyor General's Office. By 1874 Sharp and Danby had agreed to a partnership; Sharp providing the land and Danby deciding what to build on it. Success brought growth and eventually, new partners. Mr Sharp left the firm in 1880, Robert K. Leigh joined in 1882 and Mr James Orange in 1890. The early projects helped establish a reputation for institutional or 'public' work, such as Mr Danby's design for the Clock Tower Fountain in Statue Square. When Danby left the firm in 1894, its name altered to Leigh & Orange, and then stayed that way.

During the 1890s, a period of intense construction ensued, spurred by the Praya Reclamation Scheme, which gave the city a large chunk of what is now Central's core land base between Des Voeux and Connaught roads. The architecture of the new buildings situated in this area expressed the gothic/classical style of the era, many with ground floor arcades to shelter from rain and sun. By now Leigh & Orange, encouraged by the patronage of Sir Paul Chater, was considered the prime architectural office of the colony. Where the Mandarin Oriental Hotel now stands, the firm built the Queen's Building, a large office block that solidified the firm's reputation. They then built the adjacent Prince's Building, even larger. The St. Georges Building soon followed in 1904, a steel concrete structure with iron columns and teak floors. Such are the vagaries of historical records that there are some buildings no one really knows conclusively who designed, but Leigh & Orange's early prominence in local architecture put them on shortlists for any number of the city's major works. Yet the firm has never allowed itself to become specialised in only one or two building types, even if they were exalted ones. It designed go-downs, warehouses, docks and the Star Ferry wharves, critical components of the central city in the days when those zones were generally waterfront industrial in use. The ability to move among genres helped the firm survive in tough times, and capitalise in good ones.

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