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The Peace Hotel is a world famous hotel on The Bund in Shanghai. The hotel today comprises two buildings. The South Building is the former Palace Hotel (No. 19, The Bund). The North Building is Sassoon House(No. 20, The Bund), which housed the former Cathay Hotel. The two buildings both face the Bund, but are divided by the famous Nanjing Road, arguably the busiest street in Shanghai. It was announced on April 16th, that the hotel will soon be closing, going through a complete renovation and reopening in 2009 as the pre-eminent luxury hotel in Shanghai as the Fairmont Peace Hotel Shanghai.
The larger North Building at Number 20, The Bund, is called Sassoon House. It was built by Sir Victor Sassoon, of the famous Sassoon family who dominated Shanghai business and real estate in the early 20th century. He was a British Sephardic Jew of Lebanese origin, and his family had extensive business in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Calcutta. Sassoon House was the first high rise building built by Victor Sassoon. It was designed by P & T Architects Limited (Palmer and Turner), with a reinforced concrete structure. It occupied 4617 square metres, with a floor space of 36,317 square metres. Construction began in 1926 and completed in 1929. The building is ten storeys in height, partially thirteen storeys, and with a basement. The total height is 77 metres. From external design to interior decor, a consistent design scheme was followed. The building featured extensive use of straight lines in the exterior, with decorative patterns at pediments and eaves. Most of the building features granite facing, with the ninth floor and the roof surfaced with terracotta. The eastern facade (facing the Huangpu River and the Bund) features a pyramidal roof with steep sides and a height of about 10 metres. The pyramid is faced with copper (which is now green).
Photo taken on May 19, 2014 shows the South Building which now is the Swatch Art Peace Hotel.
The pictures taken on May 19, 2014 show the Sassoon House (the North Building) which houses the Peace Hotel, Citi Bank (No 19,the Bund) and United Overseas Bank (No 20, the Bund).
The building features an "A" shaped cross section. Before 1949, the ground floor space facing the Bund was leased to two banks. This space later became the Shanghai branch of Citibank in the 1980s. The rest of the ground floor featured a shopping arcade. Two main walkways crossed in the centre at an octagonal hall. In 1952 the building was taken over by the Municipal Government. In 1956 it resumed trading as a hotel under the name "Peace Hotel". In 1992 Peace Hotel was listed as one of the famous hotels of the world by the World Hotel Association. It remains the only hotel in China to have received this recognition. Today, it is particularly renowned for its Jazz Band and its roof terrace restaurant, overlooking the now booming district of Pudong across the Huangpu.
Separated from the North Building by busy Nanjing Road, the South Building was built as the Peace Building, formerly known as Central Hotel. Central Hotel was founded in the 1850s. In 1906, the hotel was restructured to form Palace Hotel. At the same time, the building was rebuilt as a six storey building, the tallest building on Nanjing Road at the time. It occupies 2125 square metres, with a floor space of 11607 metres. It has a brick veneer structure, with six storeys reaching 30 metres in height. The exterior adopts a Renaissance style. The hotel has around 120 guest rooms. The architects placed a strong accent on color and rendered the building in their locally interpreted‘Victorian Renaissance’design.