Illuminating article in Financial Times, 05/26/09, regarding the newly renovated Peace Hotel in Shanghai. - Randy Lynch
For years, Shanghai has happily smothered its past in skyscrapers, each one taller, flashier and more futuristic than the last. But now it is looking backward. The city that ran an 11-lane highway down the middle of the Bund, riverside heart of colonial Shanghai, is rebuilding the art deco Peace Hotel, its famous landmark and a symbol of all that was playful and decadent in old Shanghai. In typically Chinese defiance of both the global economic crisis and a glut of Shanghai luxury hotel rooms, the Peace Hotel is to reopen in March as a luxury hostelry, managed by Fairmont, the historic hotel operator. The money for the Rmb500m ($73m, €52m, £46m) restoration comes from the owner, Jin Jiang group, which is majority owned by the Shanghai government.
Balancing the needs of profit and preservation makes this one of the most challenging, and closely watched, historical restoration efforts in China. If the project succeeds, and the renamed Fairmont Peace Hotel becomes a commercially viable property, it could encourage more preservation of old Shanghai, according to local restoration experts. The Peace Hotel survived wartime bombs, Japanese occupation and Communist takeover: but some Chinese heritage experts worry that it will not survive a brush with capitalism.
The hotel’s pedigree is impeccable: brainchild and plaything of Victor Sassoon, the British-Iraqi trader of opium, guns and Shanghai property, it opened as the Cathay Hotel in 1929 and was the most luxurious hotel in Asia. Charlie Chaplin stayed there: one of his photographs even provided historical material for the restoration, according to Professor Ruan Yisan, consultant to the Shanghai government’s historical preservation commission. Noel Coward finished Private Lives while staying there.
From its Lalique glass shaving mirrors to its opulent “Nine Nations Suites” – from Indian, Georgian and Chinese to German, French and Italian – the hotel helped make Shanghai famous in the 1930s. When it opened, sceptics predicted failure, as Shanghai already had too many hotel rooms, says Peter Hibbard, official historian to the restoration project. “They were all proved wrong, as the hotel ... heralded a new era for Shanghai.”
But by 2007 – though foreign tourists still made the nostalgic journey to the fusty old landmark where rooms cost about $100 a night – the hotel was overcome by damp and decay. Its signature Old Jazz Band was still playing pre-war favourites, with some of the original octogenarian musicians. But Jia Xue Tai, saxophonist for the band – which now plays at another Shanghai hotel until it can return to the restored Peace Hotel – remembers burst water pipes leaking on them.
But reinstating the Old Jazz Band will be easy compared with the task of restoring the hotel’s interior. Ian Carr of Hirsch Bedner Associates, designers of the restoration, says everything from furnishings to faucets has disappeared and the hotel has had several botched renovations.
“There is no way of telling what was original,” he says. The restorers advertised for information but even getting the original blueprints was hard. Luckily, ceilings were out of reach “they couldn’t knock them down or take them out ... so they just covered them up,” he says, noting that the hotel’s octagonal glass rotunda, covered by gypsum board for decades, will be a centrepiece of the restoration.
Balancing the demands of the hotel’s Chinese state-controlled owners, Jin Jiang International Hotels, and the foreign-owned operators, Fairmont Hotels, has also been tricky. Fairmont wants “a repositioning, not a restoration,” he says, adding “they don’t want a dowdy museum piece.”
But Yang Weimin, CEO of Jin Jiang International Hotels, says the company must abide by historical preservation laws. A new building will be built at the back of the hotel to house a swimming pool, spa and large lifts.
But Lu Jiansong, of Shanghai Fudan University’s Department of Cultural Heritage and Museology, says he worries that a restoration driven by profit will not honour the historical value of this national treasure.
“The Peace Hotel belongs to the state, not to Shanghai, not to Jin Jiang and not to foreign investors,” he says.
By the time the Peace Hotel reopens, most of the Bund’s traffic will have been diverted to an underground tunnel and a new riverside promenade will have been built. It will be an important step toward realising the tourism potential of Shanghai’s historic Bund, neglected for decades.
