The Shanghai Club Building is a six-storey
Baroque Revival
The Baroque Revival, also known as Neo-Baroque (or Second Empire architecture in France and Wilhelminism in Germany), was an architectural style of the late 19th century. The term is used to describe architecture and architectural sculptu ...
building in
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 ...
located at No.2,
The Bund
The Bund or Waitan (, Shanghainese romanization: ''Nga3thae1'', , ) is a waterfront area and a protected historical district in central Shanghai. The area centers on a section of Zhongshan Road (East Zhongshan Road No.1) within the former Shang ...
. Once home to one of the premier
men's clubs in Shanghai, the building was used for various clubs and hotels after 1949. It is currently part of the
Waldorf Astoria Shanghai on the Bund.
Structure
The current building was opened in January 1910. The total building footprint is 1,811 square metres, while total floor area is 9,280 square metres. The building's main facade uses a tripartite design, the middle section featuring six
Ionic columns
The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan (a plainer Doric), and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite or ...
. The roof section of the facade has two symmetrical Baroque-style
cupola
In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome.
The word derives, via Italian, from ...
s, with intricate carved details. The architect was H. Tarrant and George Christopher Wingrove. Interior design was by Japanese architect
Shimoda Kikutaro
was an architect who created the prototype of the Imperial Crown Style for the Japanese Empire. He was a native of Akita, in northern Honshu, and moved to Tokyo in 1881, when he was fifteen. At Keio University, he enrolled in an architecture ...
( ja,
下田菊太郎). The most famous feature of the interior is the 34-metre black-and-white marble bar, called "the long bar".
History
The Shanghai Club was the principal
men's club for
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
residents of Shanghai, which was founded in 1861. The club was originally named "The Correspondent's Club". In 1864, a club building was erected on this site, a three-storey red-brick building. Former
United States President
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United State ...
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant ; April 27, 1822July 23, 1885) was an American military officer and politician who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. As Commanding General, he led the Union Ar ...
was hosted there when he visited Shanghai in 1879. In 1905, the Club decided to rebuild its club building.
[Jackson, Beverley. 005(2005). Shanghai Girl Gets All dressed up. Ten Speed Press. ]
In 1909, the old building was torn down and replaced with a new, six-storey building, with a
reinforced concrete
Reinforced concrete (RC), also called reinforced cement concrete (RCC) and ferroconcrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having hig ...
structure in a
Baroque Revival
The Baroque Revival, also known as Neo-Baroque (or Second Empire architecture in France and Wilhelminism in Germany), was an architectural style of the late 19th century. The term is used to describe architecture and architectural sculptu ...
design. The new building opened in January 1910. In its heyday in the 1920s and 1930s, the club was the most exclusive club in Shanghai.
The second-floor was famous for the "Long Bar." This was an unpolished
mahogany
Mahogany is a straight-grained, reddish-brown timber of three tropical hardwood species of the genus ''Swietenia'', indigenous to the AmericasBridgewater, Samuel (2012). ''A Natural History of Belize: Inside the Maya Forest''. Austin: Unive ...
, L-shaped bar that measured 110.7 feet by 39 feet. It was famous for being the world's longest bar at one time.
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time'' magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and ...
said, laying his cheek on it, that he could see the curvature of the earth. There were also forty guest rooms on the second and third floors.
Membership was restricted to white males of a certain class. Even the famous 34-metre Long Bar on the second floor was subject to a strict hierarchy: the prime Bund-facing end of the L-shaped mahogany bar was the territory of the ''
tai-pan
A tai-pan (,Andrew J. Moody, "Transmission Languages and Source Languages of Chinese Borrowings in English", ''American Speech'', Vol. 71, No. 4 (Winter, 1996), pp. 414-415. literally "top class"汉英词典 — ''A Chinese-English Dictionary' ...
''s and bank managers, with the social scale falling as one moved down the length of the bar. A massive Italianate Grand Hall was located on the first floor, with ceilings over 12 feet high, supported by enormous Ionic columns. The hall ended in a curving marble staircase, where twin elevators whisked members to the upper floors. Here, there were all the requisites of a proper gentleman's club: a smoking room and a library – reported to hold more volumes than the Shanghai Public Library – a billiards room, a dining room and guest rooms on the top two floors for resident members.
On the outbreak of
war in the Pacific
The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vast ...
in 1941, the Shanghai Club was closed and occupied by the
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
ese occupation force until the end of the war. In 1949, the building was expropriated by the new
Communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
government of Shanghai, and it was converted into the International Seamen Club, catering to foreign sailors. In 1971, it became the Dongfeng Hotel, and it was notable from 1990 to 1996 for hosting the first
KFC
KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) is an American fast food restaurant chain headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, that specializes in fried chicken. It is the world's second-largest restaurant chain (as measured by sales) after McDonald's, with 2 ...
restaurant in Shanghai.
From 1996 the building sat derelict, until it was leased by the
Hilton group
Ladbrokes Coral is a British gambling company founded in 1886. Its product offering includes sports betting, online casino, online poker, and online bingo. The business is split into two divisions, UK and International. UK operations are c ...
in 2009 and converted to become the
Waldorf Astoria Shanghai on the Bund, a luxury hotel. The new hotel opened in 2011.
See also
*
Canidrome
References
External links
The Bund Oriental Architecturece
{{Coord, 31, 14, 20, N, 121, 29, 0, E, region:CN-31_type:landmark, display=title, name=Shanghai Club Building
Buildings and structures in Shanghai
Landmarks in Shanghai
The Bund