（DCS系统）和（机器人系统）及（大型伺服控制系统）备件大卖！叫卖！特卖！卖卖卖！
GREEN was not the original color of Fairmont Peace Hotel’s signature tower, recalls renowned architect Tang Yu’en.

“The color was due to oxidation of the tower’s copper roof,” says Tang, who was the chief architect when a major restoration effort was carried out on the building in 2007.

“What is the original color? Nobody knows. We can only tell it was a dark tone from black-and-white archive photos, possibly the color of red copper,” she says. “However, we decided to maintain the emerald coating because the tower has looked green since the 1950s and has become part of the collective urban memory. If we change it to another color, people will feel it wrong and would not recognize this famous tower.”

Tang also discovered a surprising change of plan after construction work had commenced in the 1920s.

According to her research, the original plan of the hotel was a classic, horizontal high-rise office building named the Sassoon House. But in 1926, the owner, Jewish tycoon Victor Sassoon, decided to convert the upper part of the building into a luxurious hotel, elevating the tower top for commercial reasons.

“It was already a breakthrough, erecting such a gigantic structure on Shanghai’s soft soil. You can’t add the architectural load at will after the foundations were all planted,” Tang says.

“George Wilson from Palmer & Turner skillfully revised the horizontal plan to an imposing, even taller vertical structure in an art-deco style with a striking tower. As an architect, I’d say such a radical change was an incredibly challenging job that highlighted Wilson’s superb skills and dominance of his client, Victor Sassoon,” Tang says.

As the fourth generation of the influential Sassoon family, Ellice Victor Sassoon, with a superb nose for business, not only dominated this project, but also the commercial life of Shanghai for years. Among his many projects — from apartments, office blocks to hotels — the Sassoon House was the ultimate showpiece built on the city’s most expensive land in the 1920s, a T-shaped zone comprising the Bund and Nanjing Road.

The greyhound image, which appears at the top of the Sassoon family coat of arms, can be found here and at the former Cathay Hotel. The greyhound symbolizes courage and loyalty.

The building was erected at a cost of approximately 750,000 pounds, and the site was worth 250,000 pounds, totaling 1,000,000 pounds in all. In other words, it was a US$5 million building, according to December 22, 1928, report in The China Weekly Review.

When the Sassoon House finally threw the doors open in 1929, the first three floors were Sassoon’s offices and few other companies. The Cathay Hotel occupied the ground floor and the fourth to the ninth floors. It featured 200 rooms and nine famous “themed” suites, each decorated in a distinctive national style, including Chinese, Indian and English.

Each suite had built-in wardrobes. The bathrooms contained marble baths with silver taps and purified water. The hotel’s dining rooms were decorated with colorful, blazing Lalique chandeliers. Sassoon’s own penthouse was on the 10th and 11th floors.

North China Herald, which interviewed Ellice Victor Sassoon, quoted him as saying that the hotel’s aim was to become Far Eastern version of Claridges, a renowned luxury hotel in London.

“Land value was up … There was a great deal of Chinese capital, and the Chinese opinion was undoubtedly about investing this in paying foreign concerns. In Sir Victor’s opinion the whole reaction was one towards foreign and Chinese cooperation to the benefit of both in commercial circles. All these things accounted for the continued interest in building,” the Herald’s 1928 article said.

The paper also carried an advertisement announcing the formal opening of the Cathay Hotel in 1929, noting it was a “wonderful combination of art and luxury.”

The advertisement was honest. Today entering the hotel is like walking in a nostalgic dream. The centerpiece of the lobby is a spectacular domed rotunda adjacent to an arcade.

The dazzling stained glass in the rotunda, elegant metal lamps and abundant Art Deco carvings keep visitors lingering in the warm tones of the lobby. A soothing wood-scented aroma coming from the original 1929 Art Deco air-conditioning rents fills the air.

In 2007, when architect Tang was commissioned to restore this nostalgic dream, she was faced with an equally challenging job compared with Wilson’s some 80 years ago.