Return of a Certain Shanghai Spirit : URBN Hotel

Shanghai’s architecture and buildings look nothing like Beijing’s. The destruction of Hutons and square court houses in Bejing made a lot of noise. But the Shikumen and private restoration initiatives in Shanghai made less headlines. Shikumen is what the traditional popular worker housing structures were called. Many were restored into lofts by wealthy Chinese nationals or foreigners.

The URBN Hotel in Shanghai is a perfect example of such a restoration project. The building housed the old Post Office. And as often happens with Shanghai business ventures, an Australia-based Chinese national and an American joined forces to revive this old structure into a loft hotel in this central Shanghai neighborhood. You can still see the old postal building’s supporting beams throughout the hotel restaurant.

It’s all about preserving heritage here. The omnipresent waxed wooden floors were salvaged from French Concession housing units. The mosaic paneling is assembled from  Chinese junks. The wall stones come from old French factories still bearing their owners’ original seals. The walls are made of Suzhou slate.

The concept is also centered around the creative partnership between a Canadian architect and local master restoration craftsmen. Shanghai was built upon this cross-cultural creativity. The International and French Concessions developed around this mud infested fishing town in 1850. Initially, Europeans and Americans developed the city using local manpower. The latter turned out to be quite talented. Later, the Bauhaus movement emerged, and the Chinese embraced it. The workforce evolved from qualified workers to true artisans of applied arts, as Bauhaus dictates.

Intercultural exchanges flourished into a spectacular blend of art and craftsmanship. The most gifted Westerners and their Chinese counterparts worked together and create masterpieces like the Peace Hotel and many other such monuments now almost all destroyed.

But after a 50 year hiatus, Shanghai is once again ripe with inter-cultural creativity. Bauhaus is making a comeback. And its resulting Loft style is now prized by the wealthy local elite. These apartments are filled with Chinese antiquities and modern art paintings. But also include Italian design furniture and Scandinavian glass sculptures.

The URBN Hotel offers a rare peek into these apartments whose interiors are typically reserved for insiders or wealthy owners’ eyes only.