I noticed this building in early 2009 when I went to the 555 Building for a business meeting. Although the exterior, at the time I visited looked no different from a typical modern euro-style mockup, I suspected it to be a historic structure based on my "keen observation" (just joking).

I decided to get into the building and to my expectation, it is indeed an old house. Much of the inerior was kept intact and I am very lucky to get a last glimpse of this old style elevator before it’s going to be torn down next month.

While shooting the interior in the dark hallways last week, I had the opportunity to chit chat with many of the tenants who passed by me:

An old man who is excited about the new elevator that will be installed after they torn down this old one.

Another comrade who told me about the few century-old tenants who walk up and down the stairs each day. Pity I didn’t witness that.

Another Ayi who told me that this building was built by the British (don’t think she’s correct) and that this house was featured in the first version of the action movie "Bao Mi Ju De Qiang Sheng" (Gunshot of the Secret Agency)

After some research and also thanks to my trusty directory of the apartment building book published by Tongji University Press, this building was built in 1927 and known as The Tung Lai Building. Tung Lai Bank was founded in 1918 in Tsingtao by Liu ZiShan (1880-1948), a Shandong Native. Many of this wealthy banker’s buildings are still well preserved in Tianjing.

Some interesting facts about Liu ZiShan:

Born in 1880 in the rurals of Shandong, he went to start earning his living as a street hawker at the tender age of 14. He later became a page to a German. He was a very clever man and self taught himself German and later Japanese. In 1908, he even became an interpreter for a German architect while at the same time started his life as an entrepreneur engaging in the construction material business. In the next few years, he also became a sole agent for many German products and became quite wealthy before the outbreak of WWI.

However, a large part of his first bucket of gold came from opium trade. In a short span of time, he won a whopping amount of 42 million yuan from trading opium and became the infamous "Opium King of Tsingtao". He later diversified his business into the real estate, automobile (he was also agent of the American BUICK cars), logistic and transport, insurance, textile, electricity, coal mining and founded Tung Lai Bank in 1918, headquartered in Tsingtao, with the second branch opened in Tianjing in 1919.

As he accumulated his wealth, he deeply regretted about his early life as an opium trader and started his next chapter: PHILANTHROPY. He founded the Ji’Nan Orphanage, built the Shandong Univerity and also donated a lot of money in building the infrastructure in the Shandong Province.

He moved to Shanghai in the spring of 1948 to receive medical care and passed away in the same year, on 12th October after a heart attack.

Eric Moller arrived to Shanghai from Sweden in 1919 in poverty and won in a horse race; he used the money to purchase a few horses and got engaged in the racing business which Shanghai was famous for. Later he started a trading company, bought a ship carrying passengers along the canels and rivers around the Cheong Kong areas, and even tried his hand at real estates! He soon rose to become a ‘Taipan’, the Chinese word for a boss or successful businessman.

As his business expanded, he decided to build a house worthy of his own status.

According to most present sources, while he was finding an architect, his daughter, who had a great fondness for Andersen’s fairytales, dreamt she walked into one of the fairytale’s castles. She sketch the house to her father after waking up the next day. Eric was very interested and invited some architects to construct the house as sketched.

It was completed in 1936, but in Tess Johnston’s famous book on Shanghai’s old houses, ‘A Last Look’, she wrote that the house’s completion was delayed for a couple of years after a fortune teller warned Moller misfortune would occur if ever the house is completed. He finally did so in 1949, the year when the house was overtaken by the Communist Youth League.

But a more accurate source was that the Japanese overtook the mansion after the Pacific War, later occupied by some KMT officials, before the Communist Youth League moved in, the latter unveiling the mask of this mysterious house to the public.

The garden of the mansion covers an area of 200sqm. In the centre of the garden lies a grave with a bronze statue of a horse erected above it. Below buried a horse many said that had tuned Moller rich. Later some of his other favourite pets were buried there.

The whole estate comprises of 6 buildings, a total number of 106 rooms, with wood panel interior, decorated with navigation motives that might symbolize Moller’s shipping business.

Hengshan Group, a Shanghai based travel company, took charge of the estate in 2001 and renovated it to adapt its new use as a hotel, which was officially opened in 2002 as Hengshan Moller Villa.

Built in 1959 at the site of Silas Hardoon’s gardens at Yan’an Road, the Palace of Sino-Soviet Freindship is a glorious example of the Stalinist neo-classical architecture.

Text with kind permission from www.Hudec.cn

Mr. DV Wu Tongwen’s Residence, formerly Shanghai Urban Planning Design Institute, now with restaurant facililities on the ground floor and office for Zhonghenghao International Trade (Shanghai) Com., Ltd on the upper floors, is situated at No. 33 Tongren Road. Containing over 2,000 square-meters of building area, the four-storey reinforced concrete structure was designed in September 1935 and completed in July 1938. Because of the surface covered with green glazed tiles, it is commonly known as “”the green house”".
This residence is one of Hudec’s masterpieces which integrated a modern architecture with Art Deco style. By putting the main body of the building in the north of the site along East Beijing Road and by building a curved solid boundary wall along the road corner, a large private garden was created in the southern part of the site. There are rooms for different functions such as a banqueting hall, a ballroom, the billiard room, bar, chess room, and greenhouse etc. Composed by graceful curves and straight lines, the simple design of the facade, horizontal balcony, large pieces of curved glass and grand stream-lined outdoor staircase, make the house like a steamship with complete liveliness that visualizes an extreme modernized image. In addition to the first utilization of a small-sized lift in a private residence in Shanghai, the luxurious decoration and elements s of the house include a sun-parlor with glass ceiling, small ballroom with spring floors, full sets of air-conditioning equipment, kitchen and toilet appliances. The house is still a novel design for its indoor staircase paved with marble, imported from Italy, with its cast copper handrail, the glass safety plates, and the copper radiators embedded in the walls. The wall of the staircase and the upper part of the bounding wall were both decorated with special cast iron in the Art Deco style.
The house was once well known as “one of the most spacious and luxurious residences in the Far East”". (The building was listed as Heritage Architecture of Shanghai in 1994)

Text by John Meckley

Historic Art Deco theatre designed by Fan Wen Zhao (Robert Fan) and completed in 1941.

Designed by Hudec for Hudec in the 1930s, he and his family lived in this cottage until 1937. It is now vacant.

Currently used as a vocational school, this building was the old Gordon Road Police Station built by the British. A lot of Sikhs were hired as guards and police thus there used to be some Gurdwaras (Sikh Temples) built nearby.

Designed by the American Chinese architect Poy Gum Lee , it was built in 1934. This 13-storey apartment building has a Spanish Rooftop, which is said to be a very popular style back then.

Not much information is available for this house.

Designed by Lazlo Hudec, this mansion was built in 1920 for a W. Katz and later owned by the famous Hong Kong businessman Sir Robert Ho Tung. It was renovated in the mid 2000s by a company Lister and now used as offices for small companies.

It is currently the Writer’s Association. For more information, visit http://www.hudec.cn

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