Art and soul of Kowloon Red Guards Going Forward! Making Money! by Jiang Shuo. Good Morning by Hu Yong Yi. ART hotels have emerged as an accommodation genre but in Hong Kong the Langham group was one of the first in the world to collect the work of contemporary Chinese artists when it opened in Mongkok in 2005. Still the only five-star hotel in this bustling precinct at the top of Nathan Road, an area redolent of old Kowloon (and ideal Jackie Chan movie car chase territory) with its mildewed 60s high rises and flickering neon signs, Langham Place Mongkok holds one of the world's largest collections of contemporary Chinese art. There are more than 1500 pieces arrayed throughout the public areas and corridors of the 42-storey, 665-room property. The collection was curated (and is maintained) by Angela Li (who runs a gallery on Hollywood Road called Contemporary by Angela Li). She has also put together a fantastic little iPod tour for guests, highlighting 21 of the hotel's most important works. Art sets the tone the moment you arrive. For amid the bustle of old-world retail (on the hotel's back doorstep wet market vendors wield meat cleavers and marshal plastic tubs of fish and frogs) guests are greeted by Jiang Shuo's arresting sculpture, Red Guards Going Forward! Making Money. This pair of enormous, childlike guards, one brandishing a mobile phone, with their featureless faces and mouths opened in a cartoonish O, are intended to highlight a shift from the worship of Maoism to capitalism in mainland China. And while capitalism is no stranger to the industrious citizens of Hong Kong, Jiang's work is the first sign that this is no everyday hotel. At the Langham, the art was not selected to complement the soft furnishings or colour scheme but to provoke discussion and provide a genuine gallery experience. On the lobby level, Xu Haidong's Oxidised Babies comments on the one-child policy and is contrasted with the liberating Feather in Light 2 by young Sichuan artist Xiong Yu. Centre stage on the link bridge connecting the hotel to Langham Place Mall (with 300 shops and 50 restaurants, it heaves on weekends) is a fantastic monolithic sculpture from Wang Guangyi's Materialist series. On level 5 there is a work by one of China's most important avant-garde artists, Yue Minjun, whose laughing figures (the artist himself) are now instantly recognisable; in this instance he has donned swimming trunks and is holding one leg aloft in As Graceful as a Crane. There is one nod to the past, outside the Ming Court restaurant, where a series of replica clay pots are displayed in glass cabinets. The originals, now held in the Hong Kong Heritage Museum, were unearthed during the hotel's construction and are 2000 years old. The Langham's commitment to art extends to a great little lobby shop stocking the work of local designers and to the Michelin two-star Cantonese cuisine of the Ming Court's executive chef, Tsang Chiu King. Checklist The iPod art tour is free to guests of the Langham Place Mongkok. More: hongkong.langhamplacehotels.com; discoverhongkong.com