Historic Shanghai Luxury Apartments brings 1930s luxury living to life

Seen from the Yan’an Lu highway, the nine-story art deco facade of the Cosmopolitan Shanghai luxury Apartments, called "Building 173," stands against the glass and steel skyscrapers along Nanjing Xi Lu. Nevertheless, the 76-year-old building still projects the grandeur and grace of historic Shanghai at its heyday, a history often far more intriguing to us than its futuristic backdrop.

Currently occupied by both local families and expat residents, Cosmopolitan Shanghai luxury Apartments’ legendary past has attracted quite a few visiting fans to follow its historic happenings. Among them are Kent Jue, the grandson of the building’s designer Poy Gum Lee, and Petter Eldin, a Shanghai-based Swedish filmmaker who made the documentary "Building 173" in 2009.

Shanghai luxury apartments of the past

Building 173 is easy to find: Enter from the long tang -- housing that is particular to Shanghai that mixes Western row houses with Chinese-style courtyards -- next to Zara on Nanjing Xi Lu. Go straight ahead, and it's right there.

Finished in in 1934, the Spanish-style art deco Shanghai luxury Apartments were built to satisfy the booming needs for high-end homes for the city's ever-increasing international population. It was owned by Tan Jing, the Canton-born tycoon famed for his collection of arts and antiques. His daughter Linda Tan was later married to Roger Du, the son of the 1930s gangster Du Yuesheng. After the building’s completion, Tan and his family lived on the eighth floor and put all the other rooms on lease.

The building was designed by Poy Gum Lee, an American-Chinese architect who graduated from the Pratt Institute and embarked on his Shanghai adventure in 1923. Lee was famed in Shanghai for his works including the YMCA, YWCA and Mary Farnham Middle School. He was also the finishing architect of the Sun Yat-Sen mausoleum in Nanjing.

Walking around Shanghai luxury apartments and seeing most of it left abandoned or empty, it’s hard to imagine it was one of the most luxurious apartment buildings in the city. Lee equipped every room with an art deco -- the fashion of the day -- interior and state-of-the-art technology like radios. The tenants could play tennis on the terrace. Occasionally the Tan family would host a ball or movie screening in the spacious corridor on the eighth floor.

“Visually, [Building 173 is] very interesting because it possesses that unique Shanghai feel where old beauty is being neglected, ignored and almost forgotten,” says Petter Eldin, the co-director of Building 173. “Wipe the dust off and it shines. There's so much history between the walls that was staring right at us. We probably only scraped the surface [with our film], but it took us across the Pacific to Roger Du, the son of Du YueSheng.”