How to Actually Step Inside Shanghai’s Art Deco Icons: Which Landmarks Are Free, Which Require a Drink, and Which Are Private Homes
Shanghai holds one of the world’s greatest concentrations of 1920s and 1930s Art Deco architecture. Here is the insider protocol on how to legally walk past the brass doors.
ВЕРДИКТ РЕДАКЦИИ
1) Walk Right In (Free Lobbies): Park Hotel (170 West Nanjing Rd, Hudec’s 1934 skyscraper—see the lobby exhibit & buy butterfly puff pastries next door), Fairmont Peace Hotel Octagonal Rotunda, Bank of China Banking Hall (weekdays), Columbia Circle Tsutaya Books. 2) Open With a Ticket or Drink: Cathay Theatre & Grand Theatre (buy a movie ticket), Prada Rong Zhai (exhibition or café), Waldorf Astoria Shanghai Club (order a drink at Long Bar). 3) Exterior Only (Private Homes): Upper floors of Wukang Mansion and Fuxing West Rd residential apartments.Arriving in Shanghai in 1918, László Hudec—alongside Palmer & Turner and American-trained Chinese pioneers like Robert Fan and Poy Gum Lee—turned the city into a vertical laboratory of Art Deco and “Chinese Deco.” When Hudec’s 24-story Park Hotel opened on West Nanjing Road in 1934, it remained the tallest building in Asia for nearly half a century and inspired a teenage I. M. Pei to study architecture.