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Park Hotel. 国际饭店
Year: 1934 Shanghai Joint Savings Society Building, known today as the International Hotel, or Park Hotel, is located at No. 170 West Nanjing Road. It was named after the allied bank founded in 1923 by the Yienyieh Commercial Bank, Kincheng Banking corporation, the China and South Sea Bank and the Continental Bank. 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. Taking early American skyscrapers in New York and Chicago as a source of inspiration, J.S.S. Building was designed in a style of modern Art Deco with long vertical stripes shrinking layer upon layer on the elevations and creating a setback skyline at the top of the tower above the 15th floor. The facade is mostly covered with brown facing bricks while the bottom is coated with black granite. All these materials are produced in China. The building has a steel frame structure, coated with concrete for fireproofing, and reinforced concrete floors. Thanks to the raft foundation of reinforced concrete and the dense and deep sheet-piling, the building has the least subsidence among the high-rises built in Shanghai at that time. Each floor is equipped with hydrants, automatic extinguishing spray devices and artesian units along with a tap water supply system. Its cold air system was also the first application among hotels built in China at that time.
J.S.S Building has been reputed as the tallest in the Far East for several decades and the highest landmark in Shanghai for nearly half a century. It is Hudec’s masterpiece of modernism and Art Deco by virtue of rapid development in both financial investment in real estate and building technology in Shanghai in 1930s, the design and the construction of the Park Hotel reached the highest level of skyscrapers in the Far East in 1930s. (The building has been listed as Heritage Architecture of Shanghai in 1989.)
Site of the building:
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