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Floating in Mud to Reach the Skies: Victor Sassoon and the Real Estate Boom in Shanghai, 1920s–1930s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2019

Stephanie Po-yin Chung
Stephanie Po-yin Chung*
Affiliation:
Hong Kong Baptist University
*
*Corresponding author. Email: s53096@hkbu.edu.hk
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Abstract

The historical waterfront of Shanghai known as the Bund, one of the most impressive architectural landscapes in Asia, was described in the 1930s in Fortune magazine as having “the tallest buildings outside the American continent; the biggest hoard of silver in the world” and being “the cradle of new China”.1 At a time when the US economy was in ruins and much of China was besieged by civil war, Shanghai's foreign concessions provided a safe haven for Chinese and foreign investors. With the influx of hot money, Shanghai experienced an unprecedented building boom. Notable among these real estate developers was Sir Ellice Victor Elias Sassoon (1881–1961, hereafter Victor Sassoon) who transferred much of his wealth from India to Shanghai and then transformed the Shanghai skyline. Inspired by American skyscrapers, Sassoon decided to build the first skyscraper in Shanghai, which would also be the first in the Eastern hemisphere, even though Shanghai's muddy ground had never supported a building of that height before. This article documents how the evolution of treaty port architecture in China owed much to Victor Sassoon. Its innovations – from the advent of skyscrapers, with their Art Deco style and mixed-use function, to the engineering methods and financial arrangements that built them – bore Sassoon's stamp. As will be seen, Sassoon's experiment paid off handsomely.

Keywords

Victor SassoonShanghaiarchitecturefinance
Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , January 2019 , pp. 1 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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Footnotes

This study was made possible by a grant from the Research Grant Council of Hong Kong (HKBU 12605815). The author would like to express her gratitude for the support.

References

References

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Wilson, George L. (1930). “Architecture, Interior Decoration, and Building in Shanghai Twenty Years Ago and To-day.” The China Journal 12:5, pp. 248–50.Google Scholar
Wright, Arnold, and Cartwright, H. A. (1908). Twentieth Century Impressions of Hong Kong: History, People, Commerce, Industries and Resources. London: Lloyd's Greater Britain Publishing.Google Scholar
Zai, J. Z., and Hu, Z. X. (1986). “Piling in Shanghai Soils: Historical Sketch and Growth of Capacity with Time.” In Selected Technical Papers, eds. Chaney, R. C. and Fang, H. Y., pp. 239–55. Philadelphia: American Society for Testing and Materials.Google Scholar
Zhang, Zhongli 张仲礼 and Zengnian, Chen 陈曾年 (1985). Shaxun jituan zai jiu Zhongguo 砂逊集团在旧中国 (The Sassoon Group in Old China). Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe.Google Scholar
British Steel Archive Project, University of Bristol – Historical Photographs of China, UK.Google Scholar
British Steel Collection, Teesside Archive, UK.Google Scholar
FO 371/46239, British Property in China, Foreign Office Files for China, 1938–1948, UK.Google Scholar
Sir Ellice Victor Elias Sassoon Papers, DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University, USA.Google Scholar
Document of Kincheng Bank, Shanghai Municipal Archive, PRC.Google Scholar
The China JournalGoogle Scholar
The China Press, Shanghai (1925–1938)Google Scholar
The Chinese Recorder, ShanghaiGoogle Scholar
CWR: The China Weekly Review (1890–1950)Google Scholar
The Far-Eastern Review, Engineering, Commerce, FinanceGoogle Scholar
The New York TimesGoogle Scholar
NCH: North-China Herald (Shanghai, 1870–1941)Google Scholar
The Shanghai Times (Shanghai, 1914–1921)Google Scholar
Benton, Charlotte, Benton, Tim, Wood, Ghislaine, and Baddeley, Oriana (2003). Art Deco: 1910–1939. London: V&A Publications.Google Scholar
Bergamini, J. V. W. (1924). “Architectural Meditations.” The Chinese Recorder, 1 October, p. 650.Google Scholar
Bickers, Robert (1999). Britain in China: Community Culture and Colonialism, 1900–1949. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Bickers, Robert (1998). “Shanghailanders: the Formation and Identity of the British Settler Community in Shanghai, 1843–1937.” Past and Present 159, pp. 161–211.Google Scholar
Bickers, Robert, and Henriot, Christian (2000). New Frontiers: Imperialism's New Communities in East Asia, 1842–1953. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Burdekin, R. C. K. (2008). “US Pressure on China: Silver Flows, Deflation and the 1934 Shanghai Credit Crunch.” China Economic Review 19:2, pp. 170–82.Google Scholar
Chamberlain, J. P. (1931). “The Feetham Report on Shanghai.” Foreign Affairs: an American Quarterly Review 10:1, pp. 145–53.Google Scholar
Chi, Ch'ao-ting (1937). “China's Monetary Reform in Perspective.” Far Eastern Survey 6 (August 18), pp. 189–96.Google Scholar
Ci, Hongfei (1992). “On the Consequences of the 1935 Currency Reform.” In The Chinese Economy in the Early Twentieth Century, ed. Wright, Tim, pp. 193–207. New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Clarke, N. W. B., and Watson, J. B. (1936). “Settlement Records and Loading Data for Various Buildings Erected by the Public Works Department, Municipal Council, Shanghai.” Proceedings of 1st ICSMFE, Cambridge, MA, June, vol. 2, pp. 174–85.Google Scholar
Darwent, Rev. C. E. (1904). Shanghai. A Handbook for Travellers and Residents. Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh.Google Scholar
Denison, Edward, and Ren, Guang Yu (2006). Building Shanghai: the Story of China's Gateway. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Academy.Google Scholar
Dong, Stella (2001). Shanghai: The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City 1842–1949. New York: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Douglas, George H. (1996). Skyscrapers: a Social History of the Very Tall Building in America. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.Google Scholar
Dyce, Charles M. (1906). Personal Reminiscences of Thirty Years’ Residence in the Model Settlement of Shanghai. London: Chapman & Hall.Google Scholar
Elvin, Mark (1974). “The Administration of Shanghai, 1905–1914.” In The Chinese City between Two Worlds, eds. Elvin, Mark and Skinner, William G., pp. 239–62. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Grescoe, Taras (2016). Shanghai Grand: Forbidden Love and International Intrigue in a Doomed World. New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Hao, Yen-p'ing (1986). Commercial Revolution in Nineteenth Century China: the Rise of Sino-Western Mercantile Capitalism. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Harris, Ron (2014). “Spread of Legal Innovations Defining Private and Public Domains.” In The Cambridge Economic History of Capitalism, Vol. II, eds. Neal, Larry and Williamson, Jeffrey G., pp. 127–68. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hauser, Ernest O. (1940). Shanghai, City for Sale. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company.Google Scholar
Henriot, Christian (2010). “The Shanghai Bund in Myth and History: an Essay through Textual and Visual Sources.” Journal of Modern Chinese History 4:1, pp. 1–27.Google Scholar
Heyward Parker, James (1993). “Victor Sassoon and the Twilight of Foreign Shanghai.” M.A. Thesis, Tufts University.Google Scholar
Jackson, Stanley (1968). The Sassoons. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Jao, J. C. (1965). “The Silver Standard in China, 1911–1835.” MA thesis, The University of Hong Kong.Google Scholar
Leavens, D. H. (1935). “American Silver Policy and China.” Harvard Business Review 14 (Autumn), pp. 45–58.Google Scholar
Lee, Leo Ou-fan (1999). Shanghai Modern: the Flowering of a New Urban Culture in China, 1930–1945. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lin, W. Y. (1936). The New Monetary System of China: A Personal Interpretation. Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh.Google Scholar
Politzer, Eric (2005). “The Changing Face of the Shanghai Bund, circa 1849–1879.” Arts of Asia 35:2, pp. 64–81.Google Scholar
Roskam, William Cole (2010). “Civil Architecture in a Liminal City: Shanghai 1842–1934.” Ph.D. thesis, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Shen, L. Y. (1941). China's Currency Reform: a Historical Survey. Shanghai: Mercury Press.Google Scholar
Shiroyama, Tomoko (2011). “The Shanghai Real Estate Market and Capital Investment, 1860–1936.” In The Treaty Port Economy in Modern China: Empirical Studies of Institutional Change and Economic Performance, eds. So, Billy and Myers, Ramon H., pp. 47–74. Berkeley, CA: Institute of East Asian Studies.Google Scholar
Shiroyama, Tomoko (2008). China during the Great Depression: Market, State and the World Economy, 1929–1937. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center.Google Scholar
Taylor, Jeremy E. (2002). “The Bund: Littoral Space of Empire in the Treaty Ports of East Asia.” Social History 27:2, pp. 125–42.Google Scholar
Thomas, W. A. (2001). Western Capitalism in China: a History of the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Burlington: Aldershot.Google Scholar
Thomson, J. (1874). Illustrations of China and Its People. A Series of Two Hundred Photographs, with Letterpress Descriptive of the Places and People Represented. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Low and Searle.Google Scholar
Timberg, Thomas A. (1986). “Baghdadi Jews in Indian Port cities.” In Jews in India, ed. Timberg, Thomas A., pp. 273–81. New Dehli: Vikas Publishing House.Google Scholar
Van Houten, Robert W. (1932). “Piles and Pile Driving.” Thesis for the Degree of Civil Engineering, Newark College of Engineers.Google Scholar
Wilson, George L. (1930). “Architecture, Interior Decoration, and Building in Shanghai Twenty Years Ago and To-day.” The China Journal 12:5, pp. 248–50.Google Scholar
Wright, Arnold, and Cartwright, H. A. (1908). Twentieth Century Impressions of Hong Kong: History, People, Commerce, Industries and Resources. London: Lloyd's Greater Britain Publishing.Google Scholar
Zai, J. Z., and Hu, Z. X. (1986). “Piling in Shanghai Soils: Historical Sketch and Growth of Capacity with Time.” In Selected Technical Papers, eds. Chaney, R. C. and Fang, H. Y., pp. 239–55. Philadelphia: American Society for Testing and Materials.Google Scholar
Zhang, Zhongli 张仲礼 and Zengnian, Chen 陈曾年 (1985). Shaxun jituan zai jiu Zhongguo 砂逊集团在旧中国 (The Sassoon Group in Old China). Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe.Google Scholar