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Sure, all eyes are on Beijing’s pre-Olympiad restyle, but Shanghai isn’t yet ready to surrender its status as China’s sexiest metropolis. The financial capital, which boasts some of the world’s richest Art Deco architecture, is poised to unveil several of the nation’s hottest hotels this year. And that’s after the imminent opening of mainland China’s tallest building: the 101-story Shanghai World Financial Center.
Said to resemble a bottle opener with its trapezoidal observatory deck (1,555 feet high), the skyscraper was supposed to have a circular-shaped crown. But some Chinese feared it would recall Japan’s flag — and the country’s occupation of Shanghai seven decades ago. The retooled tower bows only to Taiwan’s Taipei 101 as the world’s tallest (a spire edges the latter 16 feet higher). But the Shanghai giant will at least house the world’s loftiest hotel — the Park Hyatt Shanghai — which steals the title from the Grand Hyatt (one of two sister hotels in the city).
Though Hyatt lords over Shanghai’s grand lodgings, several new contenders are rattling the gates. By year’s end, Dubai luxe hotelier Jumeirah will complete its first Asia hotel in the city, while The Peninsula follows next year with prime real estate fronting Shanghai’s famed boulevard, the Bund. But it’s Langham Hotels that’s aiming to break open the burgeoning boutique market — currently ruled by the ultra trendy JIA (penthouse suites come with private DJ booths) and cutting-edge eco-hotel URBN (with its solar-paneled shades).
Debuting later this year, The Langham Yangtze Boutique is a reborn 1930’s Art Deco gem near the city’s largest plaza, People’s Square. The square and the adjoining Shanghai Art Museum will host the seventh annual Shanghai Biennale, September through November. The festival’s mouthful theme, “Translocalmotion,” looks at the cultural implications of urbanization — something Shanghai, China’s most populous city, knows intimately well.
read more: 02. Sleep | 06. Drink | 10. Culture | architecture | art | boutique
