Park Hotel

In front of you is the Park Hotel, in Chinese Guoji Fandian, the “International Hotel”. When it opened on 1 December 1934, its 83.8 metres made it the tallest building in Asia, a record it held until 1963. Nothing in Shanghai topped it until 1983.

1A savings bank that wanted a skyscraper

It was commissioned by the Joint Savings Society, a savings institution set up by four Chinese banks, which wanted to rival the British hotels on the Bund. The architect was László Hudec, born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, who arrived in Shanghai in 1918 and left dozens of buildings in the city. Hudec took his cue from New York skyscrapers: notice how the tower narrows in steps and how the vertical bands of dark brick make it look even taller.

2Shanghai's zero point

In 1950, the city took this building as the reference for its coordinate system. In the lobby, a brass disc engraved with a map of Shanghai marks the “zero point”: quite literally, this is where the city was measured from.

It is often said that the architect I. M. Pei, who studied in Shanghai as a young man, decided to become an architect while watching this tower go up.

Next door, the Grand Cinema of 1933 is another Hudec design. So is the Wukang Mansion (or Normandie Apartments), about three and a half kilometres to the southwest.

3What to look for

• The stepped crown, typical of 1930s art deco.
• The dark glazed brick, unusual in a city of pale stone.
• The zero-point disc in the lobby, if the hotel lets you in.