Disappearing Corners

Text with kind permission from www.hudec.sh

Grand Theatre, known today as the Grand Cinema, is located at 216 West Nanjing Road. It was built on the site of old houses owned by the United Movies Co., Ltd, who took 1.1 million Liang of Silvers to clear the site. Designed in October 1931 and completed in May 1933, the three-storey building with reinforced concrete structure covers 4,016 square-meters of site area and 6,249.5 square-meters of building area. B. J. Lindskog designed the structural engineering and the English company Eastern Ironworks undertook the mechanical engineering aspects.
With the interleaving of vertical and horizontal lines and cubes on the street façade, and light yellow stucco on the external walls, the theatre has a modern Art-Deco style, from exterior to interior. The entrance was composed of 12 high glass doors with chromium-alloy-steel frames and black marble inlay in walls on both sides. Upon an ivory glass canopy, above the entrance, there is a large window with strong vertical-lines, attached to which was a cubic translucent glass lighting box 30.5-meters high. During the night, the light box seemed to glow.
The whole façade was quite modern in its varied layout, flowing lines, powerful contrasts and vivid colours. The elegant auditorium was designed in the shape of a bell parallel to the longitudinal axis of the site in order to make the best use of this limited and irregular plot. There were 2,016 seats arranged in concentric circles, in both upper and lower storeys of the auditorium, achieving the maximum application of business area as well as guaranteeing the comfort of the interior space. Hidden lighting systems with grooves were applied in the auditorium, entrance and rest halls. Thanks to the cooling air system with a jet supply scheme, there is neither a vent nor noise in the theatre. The lobbies on the first and second floor were all designed in cashew shapes, and linked to the entrance hall with two straight-run stairs.
The ceiling, the walls of both sides and the decoration on the walls were totally designed into flowing curves. In this way, all halls were united into one comfortable, active and unique public space. What a smart and creative solution for this difficult site in its compact urban context.
For its extremely modern and luxurious characteristics, the Grand Theatre was reputed as “the best theatre in the Far East”. As an important milestone in Hudec’s architectural life in Shanghai, the completion of the Grand Theatre marked the turning point of Hudec’s architecture style. With his accurate understanding of commercial projects, outstanding talent for dealing with difficult design contexts such as complex sites, sophisticated functions etc. and skillful expression Hudec gradually established his status as one of the most important modern architects in Shanghai. (The building has been listed as Heritage Architecture of Shanghai since 1989.)