Peace Hotel

The Peace Hotel is a hotel on The Bund in Shanghai, China, which overlooks the surrounding areas. The hotel has two different buildings. The Sassoon House, originally housed the Cathay Hotel and is today the Fairmont Peace Hotel run by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts of Canada. The South Building was built as the Palace Hotel and is today a residence and studio for artists, known as The Swatch Art Peace Hotel. The two buildings both face the Bund, but are divided by Nanjing Road. North Building The larger North Building is called Sassoon House. The building was built by Sir Victor Sassoon, of the Sassoon family, which built a Shanghai business and real estate empire in the early 20th century. He was a British Sephardic Jew of Iraqi origin, educated at Harrow School and Cambridge University. His family owned the trading company "E.D. Sassoon & Co.", which managed extensive business interests in Bombay, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. Sassoon House was the first high-rise building built by Victor Sassoon, and one of the first skyscrapers in the Eastern Hemisphere. Sassoon bought a full city block on a prominent spot on the Bund prior to construction. When built the Sassoon House topped out at fifty feet taller than the next tallest building on the Bund. It was designed by architects Palmer and Turner, with a reinforced concrete structure. Construction began in 1926, and was completed in 1929. The Cathay Hotel incorporated a high standard of luxury and modern amenities such as indoor plumbing, which made it a more esteemed establishment than other nearby hotels such as the Kadoorie family owned Majestic and Astor House Hotels. The Cathay featured a floor of rooms referred to as the “national suites,” with each room decorated in a different foreign style. According to author Jonathan Kaufman, the Japan Suite featured tatami mats, Indian rugs and cushions were found in the India Suite, and Chinese furniture and ceramics in the China Suite. The building occupies 4,617 square meters (49,697 square feet), and offers 36,317 square meters (390,913 square feet) of floor space. The building is ten stories in height, and the tenth floor is a penthouse, where Victor Sassoon once lived. The North Building is 77 meters (253 feet) high to the roofline, and 83 meters (272 feet) to the spire. The builders followed a consistent art deco scheme, from exterior design to interior decor.