Everyone knows that Shanghai is full of beautiful Art Deco buildings, but which are the ‘must sees’? Jill Gillespie talks to 1930s era expert Spencer Doddington
Spencer Doddington moved to Shanghai in 1995 and fell in love with the city’s Art Deco splendour, settling here far away from his native Texas. Since then he has been unearthing 1930s antiques that lie hidden in Dongtai Lu or Fangbang Lu markets, restoring old apartments and running luxury tours with his company
Luxury Concierge. Vantage asked him to describe his five favourite Art Deco buildings in Shanghai.
Garden Hotel
Garden Hotel, now set back from Maoming Nan Lu, was, when it was built in 1926, an exclusive French club called Circle Sportif Français, for the residents of the French Concession. In the grounds, which are still extensive, club members could play tennis and pétanque (French bowling). In 1959 Mao Zedong stayed here for some months and the paths in the garden were built for him to take walks along. “The rumour is that there is a huge bomb shelter under the grounds,” says Doddington.
The outside of the building isn’t Art Deco, it’s more classical, but inside, especially above the ground floor, there are some stunning Art Deco features. The three-four metre chandeliers that hang above the cocktail lounge radiate elegance and in the ballroom on the second floor there is a huge stained glass light on the ceiling. “My favourite parts are the ceiling lamp in the ballroom, the brass work on the stairs and the plasterwork in the ballroom entry,” says Doddington. “Nothing much like this exists in Shanghai.’’
It was designed by Shanghai’s greatest architecture team, Leonard, Veysseyre and Kruze, who all studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris but at different times. Today the Garden Hotel is run by Japanese hotel chain Okura, and their dessert brunch in the cocktail lounge on Saturday and Sundays is worth a visit for those chandeliers alone.
Hamilton House
Hamilton House is found on one corner of a cross roads designed with impeccable 1930s town planning – the buildings on each corner curve back from the road creating a pleasing circular space. There’s no hint of the building’s troubled past in the tinkling glasses and polite chit-a-chatter of the elegant French restaurant that currently occupies the first floor. The building was completed in 1933 and the first occupants were a mix of the wealthy enjoying sumptuous high end flats and poverty-stricken residents higher up. In 1941 when Japanese troops occupied the area, Hamilton House became their headquarters and this was where British, American and Dutch Shanghai residents had to register before being sent off to internment camps like the one documented in J.G. Ballard’s novel The Empire of the Sun. “They had to queue outside for hours in the winter to register as ‘enemy aliens’” says Doddington. “Can you imagine? This was the end the old Shanghai for those people, and their world.”
As well as the curve back from the road, the Art Deco features to look out for are the “HH” detail on the tops of the windows on either side of the main frontage. “They’re great,” says Doddington. “They really illustrate the architect’s and the owner’s keen interest in the building.” The architects of Hamilton House were Palmer and Turner, who also built Customs House, the HSBC Building and the Sassoon Building (the Peace Hotel) on The Bund and are still practicing today. They are responsible for several glimmering skyscrapers in Hong Kong, such Exchange Square and Prince’s Building.
Peace Hotel
The history and Art Deco credentials of this hotel are well documented, but that doesn’t prevent a gasp of wonder when seeing the immaculate detail of the interior for the first time. Hotel chain Fairmont did a commendable job of restoring it – they reopened the hotel in 2010 after three years. “The ground floor and the eighth floor [where the ballroom is] are brilliantly original,” says Doddington. “The Fairmont and their architects
[Hirsch Bedner Associates] did a brilliant job giving the hotel new life.” But Doddington doubts the hotel will ever have as much life as it did in the 1930s when owner and local bon vivant Victor Sassoon created an ever-revolving party scene around the ballroom. The legendary jazz band still play at the Peace Hotel every night, but they are now mostly in their 80s and, although wholly charming, are rather sedate.
The party scene might not be back at the Peace Hotel, but the Art Deco grandeur certainly is. “It is super eclectic with greyhound effigies intertwined by Moghul curlicues and Egyptian Rah motifs,” says Doddington. “It’s quirky, unlike any other Art Deco in the city,”
Grand Theatre
Grand Theatre on People’s Square, still a working cinema, showcases a wholly different style of Art Deco – “streamline moderne” – characterised by horizontal lines, rounded edges, simple colours and portholes resembling cruise ships of the 1930s. It was a designed by Hungarian Laszlo Hudec, a prolific architect who remained in Shanghai until the mid-1940s and built several hospitals and churches in the city as well as the Park Hotel (see below). “The interior has been lovingly restored,” says Doddington. “The Grand Theatre is one of the finest works by Hudec in Shanghai.”
Park Hotel
The exterior of the Park Hotel on People’s Square is austere and almost gothic. A building like this wouldn’t look out of place in a Gotham City skyline, which makes sense as it was inspired by a building in the city that Gotham was modelled on, the American Radiator Building in New York. When it was built in 1934 the Park Hotel was the tallest building in Asia (at 22 floors) and it held that record until 1952.
Nowadays it’s a case of ‘how the mighty have fallen’ as the hotel fails to compete with the other luxury hotels in Shanghai. The atrium feels cramped when you are used to modern expanses of space when you walk into a lobby – but the current owners have made museum pieces of some of the interior’s Art Deco features, and it’s worth stepping in and having a look around. Sadly though, the top-floor ballroom, that used to have a roof that opened at the press of a button, is no longer functioning.
