Birthday buildings in Shanghai (1920)
Inspired by the list of Hong Kong Birthday Buildings in 2020 on Gwulo, here is a short list of Shanghai buildings, which celebrated (or would have celebrated) a centennial in the year 2020.
1920
In January, Foreign Women's Home opened in a new building at 18 Baikal (Huimin) Road, which replaced the old YWCA dorm. Today's state is not confirmed.
In July, the first Chinese Stock and Produce Exchange opened at No. 1 Szechuen Road, on the corner of Avenue Edward in a 3-story building specially remodeled for this purpose (so can we almost say it was "born" that year). The drawing below and the photo in the link show how it looked before it was replaced with the modernist Wheelock Building.
In August, the opening of the Annex of the Great Eastern Hotel was celebrated, which was part of the Wing On department store building.
In September, the new Central Garage, designed by Percy Tilley (top image) opened on Hongkong Road. The 100-year-old building still stands, at 111 Hongkong Road 香港路111号.
Also in September, Hwei Hai Industrial Bank opened in a new building on Kiukiang Road. Now known as Continental Building, it still stands at 230 Jiujiang Road 九江路230号.
At one point in 1920, Chinese Telephone Exchange opened, at today's 734 Zhonghua Road 中华路734号; thankfully, it also still stands.
Besides the buildings that received press coverage at the time of the opening, smaller and more utilitarian structures were opening by the hundreds. By July 1920, the Bureau of the Public Works of the International Settlement had issued more than 400 building permits, and it was calculated that there were 397 active construction sites in the Settlement alone! It was also noted that offices and manufacturing facilities had overtaken foreign and Chinese residences, signaling the growing shortage of economical housing.
Many interesting architectural ensembles appeared in 1920 in other cities - the 2,000,000-dollar Grand Hotel de Peking (designed by Brossard Mopin and Cie, of Tientsin), new HSBC offices in Hankow and Hong Kong, new post office at Tsinanfu (named "the finest in China"), new YMCA buildings in Nanking and Hangchow, and even some new Mokanshan Hotel buildings - but that's another story...