Monster Building (Yick Cheong Building), Quarry Bay, Hong Kong

The Monster Building is a system of five interconnected buildings in Quarry Bay, Hong Kong. It is a popular location for photography, and had been used as inspiration for several filming locations.

The housing estate was originally built in the 1960s and named Baakgaa Sancyun and later sold. In 1972, the housing block was split to five blocks: the Fook Cheong Building, the Montane Mansion, the Oceanic Mansion, the Yick Cheong Building, and the Yick Fat Building. The five blocks consist of 2243 apartments and can house 10,000+ people. There are shops on the street front. The highest building is the Oceanic Mansion, with 18 floors. Because it is such a dense living space, it is difficult to have it demolished and rebuilt.

The location is popular with tourists, so much so that locals have placed warning signs that forbid taking photos. The structure inspired locations in films like Transformers: Age of Extinction and Ghost in the Shell and music videos like Labyrinth by Mondo Grosso and Hikari Mitsushima and Cave Me In by Gallant and Eric Nam. The Monster Building is an iconic residential building complex in eastern Hong Kong Island. In the recent years, it has become a very popular spot to take photographs, especially for Instagrammers and urban explorers, the building is one of the most seen places in Hong Kong on Instagram.

People are impressed by the building's unique symmetry and striking density. When standing on a courtyard of the building and looking up, you will see the towering concrete buildings rise on all three sides, leaving only a small, U-shaped gap of sky on the top.

The Monster Building, as it’s been nicknamed by locals, isn’t actually a single building, but an E-shaped complex composed of five connecting structures: Oceanic Mansion, Fook Cheong Building, Montane Mansion, Yick Cheong Building, and Yick Fat Building. They were built during a population boom in the 1960s to offer government-subsidized housing for low-income residents.

The compound has a similar look to other subsidized housing built in the same decade, when the upper floors of the building were used as residences and the lower floors were used for shops selling tea, fish, and other groceries and household goods. Because of its photo-friendly symmetry and aesthetically striking architecture, the building has become a favorite spot for urban explorers and Instagrammers. The area has been used as a set in multiple films, including Ghost in the Shell and Transformers. With the growth of popularity, photographing the building has become more challenging due to a ban on public access to the inner courtyard.

Yik Cheong Building and Montane Mansion are possibly the most well-known locations in Quarry Bay and definitely one of the most Instagrammed spots in Hong Kong.

The building on the east of the complex is Yick Fat Building, the middle one in the complex is Yick Cheong Building, the one on the west is Montane Mansion, and the one that connects these three buildings together on their north is Fook Cheong Building, which is also connected to the smallest building of the complex, the Oceanic Mansion on its west end. There are two courtyards between these buildings. The whole complex is officially referred to as Yick Cheong Building, which is also the name of the central building in the complex.

Like most of other residential buildings in Hong Kong, the upper floors of the Monster Building are for domestic use while the ground floor is occupied by a variety of stores selling seafood, groceries and household goods. The Yick Fat Building (the easternmost building of the complex) has a coffee shop on its ground floor.

As an E-shaped concrete complex, it has two courtyards between the buildings, the two courtyards are very similar, but are painted differently, the western courtyard is painted mostly with plain white color, while the eastern courtyard is painted with a variety of colors and looks more colorful and interesting. Another difference between the two courtyard is that the eastern courtyard is actually surrounded by 4 tower blocks, there's an additional tower sitting on the south side of it, and that tower is much higher

The tower is known as Kornville Tower 2, it is 478 ft (146 meters) tall and has 50 floors, and was built in 1995. If you stand on the eastern courtyard and look up, you can find that the Kornville Tower 2 is perfectly integrated with the Monster Building, the sky is enclosed by buildings on all 4 sides.

Before you entering into the courtyard, it's recommended to first have a look at the Fook Cheong Building from the King's Road, the facade of this residential building is extremely long, and also tall, its view is not less impressive than what is seen from the courtyards. The upper floors of Kornville Tower 2 is no doubt an ideal place to get a different and even better view of the Monster Building, the price for buying or renting a unit in the tower are lower than the average in the city, as the tower is situated a little far from the city center.

walking between these towering concrete walls can get you a fascinating experience, you should realize that these buildings are for residential use, people actually live there, you can find elders sitting at tables playing Mahjong in the courtyards. As so many people are flocking to the site everyday, a sign has been erected stating visitors should ask for permission before taking photos, though it has done little to stop those happy snappers.