Park Hotel Shanghai

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Park Hotel
国际饭店

Park Hotel, Shanghai
General information
Location 170 Nanjing Road West,
Shanghai 2000003,
People's Republic of China
Opening 1 December 1934
Owner Shanghai Jinjiang International Hotels Corp.
Technical details
Floor count 24
Floor area 15,650 square meters
Design and construction
Architect László Hudec
Developer Voh Kee Construction Company for the Joint Savings Society[1]
Other information
Number of rooms 200
Website
http://www.parkhotel.com.cn

Park Hotel (simplified Chinese: 国际饭店; traditional Chinese: 國際飯店; pinyin: guójì fàndìan; literally International hotel), once the tallest building in Asia from 1934 to 1958, is a famous hotel on Nanjing Road West overlooking Renmin Park in Shanghai, China.

History

The Shanghai Joint Savings Society Building, known today as the Park Hotel or in Chinese as the International Hotel (国际饭店|t=國際飯店), located at No. 170 West Nanjing Road, was named after the bank founded in 1923 by the merger of Yienyieh Commercial Bank, Kincheng Banking corporation, the China and South Sea Bank, and the Continental Bank. The JSS Building was designed in March 1931 and completed in December 1934. The building is 83.8-metres high and contains 22 stories above ground and another 2 stories underground. Built by Voh Kee Construction Company, the piling project was finished by a Danish Company established by Corrit.[2]

Built in 1934, a prime example of Art Deco architecture designed by the Slovak - Hungarian architect Ladislav Hudec.[3] It was built by the Joint Savings Society as a competitor for the Cathay Hotel.

Strongly inspired by the American Radiator Building, it is most well known building from Hudec in Shanghai. It was the tallest building in Asia at 22 floors / 84 m (275 ft) until 1952. It remained the tallest building in China until 1966, and in Shanghai until 1983.

On February 23, 1938, G.H. Thomas wrote: "I stayed at the Park Hotel on Bubbling Well Road, where I had a great room and bath. The appointments, the bath and the service are just like in any first-class hotel in New York. A single room such as mine costs $8 a day without food."[4]

It was built overlooking the horse racing course owned by The Shanghai Race Club one of the most prestigious locations in Shanghai at the time. The Shanghai Race Course and the Shanghai Recreation Ground that it enclosed was turned into Renmin Park by the PRC government. Originally the Park Hotel accommodated the Joint Savings Society Bank in its lower two floors, and the hotel on the upper floors.[3]

In 1997 the building was refitted by American architect George Grigorian.[3]

Exterior

The first three floors are finished with polished black granite from Shandong province. The upper floors are clad with dark brown brick and ceramic face tiles.[3]

The exterior has had two major changes: there is a banking entrance on one corner, and a marquee was added that masks the unique silhouette of the top floors.

Interior

In 1935, the outdoor garden on the 13th floor was converted into the 14th floor banquet space and surrounded by windows and covered with a retractable roof. That roof is now a back-lit glass panel set into a ceiling.

Most of the interior was deliberately changed by the Communist government in the 1950s because they disliked the existing bourgeois style. Ironically, it was then renovated a second time in the 1980s to return some of it to the original style. In 1997, American designer George Grigorian remodeled some the interior using an Art Deco style. American architect Christopher Choa restored the Art Deco lobby in 2001.[5]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Laszlo Hudec: Park Hotel
  2. ↑ Joint Savings Society Building
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Warr, Anne: Shanghai Architecture, The Watermark Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-949284-76-1
  4. ↑ G.H. Thomas, in Old China
  5. ↑ "History of Park Hotel". Retrieved 2009-12-27. 

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