The Paramount () is a historical

nightclub A nightclub (music club, discothèque, disco club, or simply club) is an entertainment venue during nighttime comprising a dance floor, lightshow, and a stage for live music or a disc jockey (DJ) who plays recorded music. Nightclubs gener ...

and

dance hall Dance hall in its general meaning is a hall for Dance, dancing. From the earliest years of the twentieth century until the early 1960s, the dance hall was the popular forerunner of the discothèque or nightclub. The majority of towns and citi ...

at 218 Yuyuan Road in Jing'an,

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. It was the largest ballroom in Shanghai before the

People's Liberation Army The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the principal military force of the People's Republic of China and the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The PLA consists of five service branches: the Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, ...

established control over the city in 1949.

History

The Paramount, designed in

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

style by the architect S. J. Young (楊錫鏐 ''Yáng Xíliù'', 1899-1978) was completed in 1933,Warr, Anne: ''Shanghai Architecture'', The Watermark Press, 2007, by a group of Chinese bankers. It lay just off Bubbling Well Road (now

Nanjing West Road Nanjing Road (; Shanghainese: ''Noecin Lu'') is a road in Shanghai, the eastern part of which is the main shopping district of Shanghai. It is one of the world's busiest shopping streets, along with Fifth Avenue, Oxford Street, Orchard Road, ...

), a major entertainment thoroughfare and was a meeting place for the wealthy elite of Shanghai society. The Ballroom lasted under its original owners before going bankrupt in 1936. In 1937, it was converted into a taxi dance hall featuring Chinese dance hostesses, which it remained until 1949. In 1956, following the

Chinese Communist Revolution The Chinese Communist Revolution, officially known as the Chinese People's War of Liberation in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and also known as the National Protection War against the Communist Rebellion in the Republic of China (ROC ...

, the Paramount was closed and it later reopened as the Red Capitol Cinema showing Maoist propaganda films. As a result of the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...

, the building became defunct and obscure. On a rainy day in 1990, part of the structure's façade collapsed and killed a passerby on a sidewalk. In 2001, Taiwanese investors spent $3-million to refurbish the venue and reopened it as a ballroom in its original style, with red-and-gold décor. In December 2006, the Paramount's Taiwanese owners announced the ballroom was losing revenue, so they decided to convert the second and third floors into a disco. Only the fourth-floor ballroom will remain in the old style, and preservationists have expressed concerns that the structure could be damaged by the reverberations of the disco. In the last item from the BBC Radio Program: "

From Our Own Correspondent ''From Our Own Correspondent'' is a weekly BBC radio programme in which BBC foreign correspondents deliver a sequence of short talks reflecting on current events and topical themes in the countries outside the UK in which they are based. The pro ...

" on June 16th, 2012,

Fuchsia Dunlop Fuchsia Dunlop is an English writer and cook who specialises in Chinese cuisine, especially Sichuan cuisine. She is the author of five books, including the autobiographical ''Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper'' (2008). According to Julia Moskin in ...

reported on a dance visit to the refurbished Paramount. In July 2012, Tangobang chose this venue for the Shanghai Tango Festival. In March 2017, the Paramount reopened as a nightclub after it was renovated.

References

External links

"BBC Radio 4- From Our Own Correspondent"
at ''China.org.cn'' {{coord missing, Shanghai Art Deco architecture in Shanghai