If you happened to pass by Hong Kong's central business district in the past week, you might have been surprised to discover Landmark Chater transformed into somewhat of a gallery: straight up the escalator, Banksy's famous shredded artwork Girl Without Balloon is just around the corner; on the opposite side, there's a spectacular prehistoric woolly mammoth skull accompanied by a dinosaur and a Futura Pointman sculpture. 

Spreading across the two-storey space previously occupied by Giorgio Armani, that gallery is Sotheby's new Maison in Hong Kong – a retail and exhibition space with most items on the first floor available for instant purchase, the prices ranging from HK$5,000 to 50 million (US$640 to 6.4 million).

But what exactly can visitors buy there and what kind of experience can they look forward to? What is the concept behind this new Maison? Is Sotheby's shifting towards a more retail-oriented approach in the future?

The Value caught up with Nicolas Chow, Chairman of Sotheby's Asia, for answers. 

"What we propose here is a very radical dual concept between an immersive experience downstairs and a very playful concept store upstairs that rides across 80 million years of history across more than 20 categories," said Nicolas Chow. "You can come here at any time to buy a dino, a watch, a rare book, a manuscript, a rare Italian drawing, or a horror movie poster – anything you can possibly imagine." 

On the first floor, seven thematic Salons across five spaces each showcase a different curated universe, with various scenes being brought to life through rare works of literature – a nod to Sotheby's beginnings as auctioneers of books and manuscripts. "Snow on the mountain, Flowers in the room, Thoughts in the skull.” Allen Ginsberg, Mostly Sitting Haiku, a quote in a glass front of one room reads, for instance. 

Inside that Salon is an elegant juxtaposition of art, design, and collectibles from diverse cultures across time and geography: a Chinese Ming Dynasty southern official's hat armchair (HK$7,200,000), Chinese contemporary ink artist Lu Dan's Poppies painting (HK$2,720,000), Japanese contemporary artist Chiharu Shiota's State of Being (Skull) (HK$1,220,000), a millions-of-years-old gogotte (HK$230,000), and American Beat poet Allen Ginsberg's Mostly Sitting Haiku (HK$8,000). 

"All these books are gonna pepper the whole parameter, all the galleries from upstairs to downstairs, and bring to life the curation," added Chow. 

Echoing the entire curation is a tailored nine-hour playlist handpicked by Chow, playing across the first-floor space from morning to night. He said, "Music has the power to intensify emotions, and the perception of a piece of art can evolve based on the setting and sensory experience. It allows you to experience each and every work in a very different way; it opens windows." 

"So you'll have a playlist that is totally schizophrenic, jumping in styles from hip-hop to minimalism, to German industrial, to Gothic music." That included songs by David Lynch, Gainsbourg/Birkin, Radiohead, SZA, Travis Scott, and Cigarettes After Sex, to name but a few. And this contrast of styles is to match the sprawling array of material presented at the Maison. 

Walking downstairs through a transitional portal, visitors are first greeted by a diverse range of somber Buddhist sculptures at the Grotto, where the inaugural exhibition Bodhi: Masterpieces of Monumental Buddhist Art is taking place. In contrast to the bright and open design above, the ground floor is a mystical state-of-the-art space designed for immersive experiences and moments of profound contemplation. 

"When we signed this space, we went around interviewing some of the greatest architectural firms and settled with MVRDV, the Rotterdam-based edgy architectural firm. We found that their innovative approach is very much in keeping with what we have as a strategy today: looking forward," explained Chow. 

"Basically the conceptual brief that we give MVRDV is centered around Taoism, around the rock, around ideas of sustainability, harmony with nature, mutability, and adaptability – all those ideas that are so important today in this eco-conscious world." 

"I gave them a quote by Su Shi from the 11th century that reads, 'The stone is patterned and ugly. From this one word 'ugly' comes a thousand shapes and ten thousand forms.'" 

"You'll experience that sense of mutability and change in all of our spaces downstairs: the Grotto, the Pantheon, a slightly smaller room, and the Sanctum, where we're now holding the Ice exhibition. It brings together two masterpieces from thousand years apart: a Gerard Richter painting of an iceberg from 1982 and an extremely rare and sublime Ru washer from 11th-century China.” 

The three spaces on the ground floor are meticulously handcrafted with wood in nuanced shades of dark burgundy and charcoal. Soaring in places to an impressive six meters, the interplay of high and low ceilings mirrors the unexpected crevasses and protrusions of an ancient rock. 

With Sotheby's venturing into the brick-and-mortar retail business, many wonder: what about their traditional auction business?

"Our new concept store does not mean that we do not continue on our signature auction program. In fact, we'll continue to push our auction program but now be spread across the calendar throughout the year, so we will not have just auctions twice a year all concentrated. In between it's this program of exhibitions," explained Chow. "We also plan to have contemporary performances downstairs because it's such a theatrical space."

"And at the concept store here we'll have retail 7 days a week, 365 days a year – any time. We invite you to come and experience it."