Birthday Buildings in Shanghai (1922)
Birthday Buildings is an annual column that highlights Shanghai’s centenarian buildings - that is, those that were built one hundred years ago.
1922
According to the SMC report, there were 63,387 Chinese houses and 4,580 foreign houses in the International Settlement. And the building continued. Some of the large projects on the Bund, which started in 1921, were finished in 1922.
• The Jardine, Matheson and Co. (EWO) building, at No. 27 The Bund, designed by Stewardson, Spence and Luthy, opened in November 1922.
PastVu: https://pastvu.com/p/1315857
• Its neighbor, the Glen Line Building, at No. 28, had already opened, in May 1922, in a “quiet but complimentary ceremony”; it was designed by Palmer and Turner:
PastVu: https://pastvu.com/p/1300876
• The Shanghai Municipal Council building, on the entire block between Honan, Hankow, Kiangse and Foochow Roads, opened in November 1922. Designed by R. C. Turner, the architect of the Public Works Department, it took eight years to build. While some journalists called it “a handsome erection”, others disagreed: “It is certainly not handsome and it is an architectural failure in more respects that one. Apart from the fact that its foundations have sunk some six inches, so that the base of the building itself is below the road level, the whole edifice is too heavy and squat in appearance... and the central approach is hidden and wholly insignificant-looking.” (The same critic called the new buildings on the Bund “a mess”.)
Hankow Road / Kiangse Road entrance. PastVu: https://pastvu.com/p/1701734
• The International Banking Corporation on Kiukiang (Jiujiang) Road, designed by Murphy, McGill and Hamlin Architects, was finished in November 1922. More about this building: https://avezink.livejournal.com/396745.html
PastVu: https://pastvu.com/p/1678078
• The headquarters of Shanghai Waterworks, on Kiangse Road, was built in 1922, designed by Palmer and Turner. A bit more about it: https://avezink.livejournal.com/358500.html
PastVu: https://pastvu.com/p/1515903
The new dormitory building of McTyeire Girls’ High School, at Edinburgh Road, opened in November 1922. The “handsome Gothic structure” was designed by L. E. Hudec for R. A Curry’s architecture studio. Now it is Shanghai No. 3 Girls’ High School (155 Jiangsu Road).
• The Shanghai Baptist College (later Shanghai University), in Yangtszepoo, received a new Science Building in April 1922.
• China Fibre Container Co. factory at today’s 273 Haizhou Lu, opened in November 1922; the building was expanded in 1929:
My photo from 2008.
• Among the buildings, which were “born” in 1922 but have not survived to this day, the most interesting was, perhaps, the Carlton Café, on Bubbling Well Road, which opened in December 1922:
PastVu: https://pastvu.com/p/714171
• Also, Hongkew Swiming Bath, in Hongkew Park, opened in August 1922.
More about it: https://avezink.livejournal.com/190090.html
• Also not surviving is C. H. Gonda’s first project - the redesign of the Lane Crawford and Co. frontage, on Nanking Road, right next to the Palace Hotel:
More about this project: https://avezink.livejournal.com/258566.html
Previous years:
Birthday Buildings in Shanghai (1920)
Birthday Buildings in Shanghai (1921)