Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
thematically across four floors. Be sure to visit the Ancient Bronze Gallery, the Ancient
Chinese Ceramic Gallery, which traces this born-in-China craft from the Neolithic Yellow
River cultures to the Qing Dynasty. Other must-sees include the nation's largest collection of
Chinese paintings in the Chinese Painting Gallery and the colourful Chinese Minorities Na-
tionalities Gallery. Allow at least a couple of hours here.
László Hudec
László Hudec (1893-1958) was already a chartered architect when, as a lieutenant
in the Austro-Hungarian army, he was taken prisoner by the Russian army and sent
to a Siberian prison camp. Hudec eventually escaped and made his way to Shang-
hai, where he found work with the American architectural firm RA Curry. There, he
designed dozens of important buildings, including the American Club and the Nor-
mandie ISS Apartments. But his real masterpieces were created after 1925, when he
set up his own firm. Inspired by the modernist architecture of New York, Hudec de-
signed some of Shanghai's most innovative buildings, three of which are within a few
metres of each other along Nanjing Road and Xizang (Tibet) Road: the Art Deco
Grand Theatre cinema, the Park Hotel and the Moore Church. Today, he is con-
sidered Shanghai's master architect.
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE GOLDEN AGE
Like a brand-new portrait set within an antique frame, the ultra-modern core of Shanghai is
surrounded by the legends that defined old Shanghai: its tallest building, best theatre and
wildest entertainment. Leave the museum via the south entrance and cross busy Yan'an
Road to the elegant neoclassical
Shanghai Concert Hall
(Shanghai Yinyueting). Built in
1930 as the Nanking Theatre, the building was uprooted in 2004, on the occasion of its 75th
anniversary, and slowly moved 66.46 metres southeast on special rollers to make way for an
extension of the Yan'an highway. The cost of shifting it out of harm's way was a cool
RMB150 million. In its new position, it's today home to the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra.
Head east to the intersection with Tibet Road, and to the wedding-cake building that dom-
inates the corner: the legendary
Great World
(Da Shijie), controlled in the 1930s by Huang
Jinrong ('Pockmarked Huang'), the head of the Concession's detective squad and a member
of Shanghai's underworld Green Gang. In its heyday, the building was filled with entertain-
ment of a mostly unsavoury nature, an endless array of smoky gambling dens, dance halls
