SHANGHAI SURPRISE:

A Chinese City Shares Miami Beach’s Art Deco Heritage

Many people associate Art Deco with Miami – more specifically with South Beach. The tropical-colored, neon-lit hotels along Ocean Drive with their “come hither” curves, thrusting spires, and flirty “eyebrows” are famous the world over.

But, in fact, Art Deco, a design movement originating in Europe and inspired by the technological and industrial advances of the ‘20s, can be seen as far away as Melbourne, Australia; Napier, New Zealand; Asmara, Ethiopia, and the harbor cities of China. Christened in the ‘60s, the name, Art Decocomes from a 1925 decorative arts exhibition in Paris that drew attention to the distinctive, richly detailed style.

Shanghai, with more Art Deco buildings than any other city in Asia, is considered a capital of Art Deco. However, the edifices aren’t clustered as in South Beach; instead, they are scattered all over the city. This, combined with the rapid and large scale urban redevelopment that accompanied Shanghai’s economic surge, has made it exceptionally difficult for preservationists to save and maintain them. Many of the buildings have survived only because so few buildings were built in the period from the Communist takeover in 1949 to the ‘90s. Interestingly, Shanghai has looked to Miami as an inspiration for preserving its Deco heritage.

Building Bridges
Don and Nina Worth, who have lived in the Art Deco historic district on Ocean Drive since 1993 are ardent preservationists involved with the successful efforts to create historic designations for the MiMo (Miami Modern) district and, more recently, for the Miami Marine Stadium (www.marinestadium.org). In 2005, they were among twelve participants in a United States - China Friendship Association trip to China. A requirement was that they develop a cultural exchange program; Art Deco in Shanghai was a natural match. A meeting was arranged with the architect Xing Tong He.

Perhaps because of Asian humility, it wasn’t made clear to them that Mr. Xing is, in fact, the Chief Architect of the Shanghai Xien Dai, one of the five largest architectural firms in the world. They discussed the similarities between Miami and Shanghai – both energetic, multicultural, cosmopolitan cities with a strong design sensibility and a rapidly growing population; cities where
smaller, historic buildings are often sacrificed for modern, high density ones.

Miami Beach’s annual Art Deco Weekend 2007 was themed “East Meets West: Art Deco from Shanghai to Miami.” A Shanghainese delegation of government officials, urban planners, and preservationists made the cultural exchange complete, witnessing first hand how preservation of the Art Deco district has served as an economic engine attracting global tourists. Developer and preservationist Tony Goldman funded and hosted an exhibition of one hundred Art Deco photographs by Deke Erh. Half were taken in Miami Beach and half in Shanghai. In 2008, the Worths created the book Art Deco in Shanghai and Miami Beach, which features Erh’s photographs. The book was in part financed by Hutchison Whampoa, a Hong Kong-based conglomerate developing a 1,000 unit Art Deco styled condominium complex in Shanghai designed by Xing Tong He’s firm. The photography exhibition was recently reprised at the University of Miami School of Architecture.

Deco -Rated
In the ‘20s and ‘30s, Shanghai was a city enthralled by fashion, glamour and modernity, a Paris of the East, where an international crowd of celebrities and wannabees partied together in jazzy venues. Art Deco suited the time and the place.

Shanghai’s fabulous Art Deco hotels were developed and designed by a polyglot of people. In 1929, Sir Victor Sassoon, a noted hotelier and British subject of Iraqi Jewish ancestry, opened the magnificent Cathay Hotel. Not far away, gracing an intersection, are Sassoon’s Metropole Hotel, with its family emblems featuring greyhounds and Hamilton House, its twin and originally a combination office building and apartment house. The twenty-two story Park Hotel, the tallest building in China when it opened in 1934, was designed by Hungarian Laszlo Hudec. Home-grown and European-educated Li Fan designed the famous Yangtze Hotel.

The former French concession is a beautiful, residential area where plane trees, imported from France, line the streets. Along the wider boulevards are Art Deco apartment buildings with glamorous facades and high-ceilinged, terrazzo-floored lobbies inlaid with deco designs. As one might expect, some buildings are named the Gascogne, Dauphine, and Normandie. Others have British names, such as the Savoy, Grosvenor, and Cavendish. You can still find Art Deco row houses down narrow lanes and little deco villas behind walls and gardens.

Farther east, in the busy, old International Settlement, are the majestic deco commercial buildings, including many of its hotels. South of the Sassoon House is the starkly white Art Moderne Bank. To the north, the aptly-named Embankment Building extends along the Suzhou Creek for a quarter of a mile.

Recently, preservation has, gained ground. The Yangtze Hotel, now the five star Langham Yangtse Boutique Shanghai, completed a thirty million dollar renovation. Urged by Shanghai city officials, the state-run company that owns the Peace Hotel, formerly The Cathay, is investing millions of dollars to renovate it. When it reopens, it will be managed by Fairmont Hotels & Resorts. The Park Hotel still stands tall, but the horse-racing track it once overlooked is now People’s Square. Next door, the Art Deco Grand Theater, with its dramatic lobby and staircase, has also been renovated.

Deke Erh explains in Art Deco in Shanghai and Miami Beach that he intended his photographs “…to afford the residents of these two cities an opportunity to appreciate the architectural wonders of each other’s cityscape…” If Miamians find themselves homesick in Shanghai, they can find the familiar in its beautiful Art Deco buildings.

-- Marlene Sholod