Jialing Building keeps alive the legacy of the Hardoon family
Print Edition
THE Liza Hardoon Building at 99 Nanjing Road E. was named after a Chinese woman who inherited her husband’s estate in 1931 and became Asia’s wealthiest woman.
Today, the edifice is called Jialing Building — from Luo Jialing, the Chinese name of Liza Hardoon.
Born in 1864 to a poor family in Shanghai, Luo married a Jewish tycoon Silas Aaron Hardoon in 1886. Hardoon was penniless when he arrived in the city from Baghdad in 1868. He found work with David Sassoon, Sons & Company as a watchman but quickly mastered the art of acquisition of commercial property, chiefly retail property, along Shanghai’s main thoroughfare.
When Jialing Building was near completion in 1936, The China Press called the six-story structure “one more imposing building in the Central District.” The building housed shops, business offices and residential quarters.
“Viewed from the streets, the building has a modern appearance. The greater proportion of the exterior wall space is done in cast stone blocks, while the spandrel walls are in face brick cemented to the concrete walls. The whole structure is of reinforced concrete and other fire-proof materials,” the report said.
The newspaper also noted that all the shops in the new building had been rented to good tenants, according to architect Percy Tilley.
“It is said that the apartment section is popular due to the demand for comfortable quarters in the downtown area. The apartments occupy the whole of the top floor. About 50 bed-sitting rooms with baths have been provided. The main entrance to the business offices and the apartments is on the Nanking Road side of the building. The upper floors are reached by a broad stairway. Two lifts are also provided,” the report said.
Tongji University Professor Chang Qing says construction work was completed in a little more than a year due to advanced architectural technology in the 1930s and the simple-cut design.
“Liza Hardoon Building was designed with a stepped massing along Sichuan Road M., which mirrored American skyscrapers built during the same time. Despite the granite plinth, the façade is covered by slating. The façade, which has vertical lines, was treated in such a simple-cut way that only the top part is adorned with some continuous geometrical patterns. I’d define it an Art Deco high-rise in the Commercial Gothic style,” says professor Chang, author of the book “Origin of a Metropolis, A Study on the Bund Section of Nanjing Road in Shanghai.”
“The building uses steel doors and windows. The interior decoration applies peach timber and imported lauan,” he says.
In old Shanghai, the building’s famous tenant was Chase Bank. It also houses a bank today, a branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. The interior has changed a lot but the bank has hung some archival photos of the building and Nanjing Road to showcase the past.
Perched on the old site of British shop Hall & Holtz, the simple-cut building was one of the few modern constructions among the former Hardoon properties.
“Hardoon was the only man in the history of Shanghai who had served as a member of the board for both Shanghai Municipal Council (that ruled the international settlement) and French Municipal Council (that governed the French concession),” says Wang Jian, director of Institute of History at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, who authored “Shanghai Jewish Cultural Map.”
“That was due to his vision of the city’s development. At that time Xizang Road was still a suburban area and it was him who suggested the international settlement should expand toward the west, till today’s Jing’an Temple. There were other opinions like extending to the north or the south,” he adds.
Hardoon himself profited from his vision. He founded his own company on Nanjing Road and made a huge profit by investing in the city’s booming real estate, especially “Shanghai’s Fifth Avenue,” today’s Nanjing Road.
“After marrying Luo Jialing, Hardoon, a lonely expatriate, finally had a home in Shanghai,” Wang says, adding Mrs Hardoon had a big influence on her husband.
“She influenced Hardoon to believe in Buddha, pay for the publication of books on Buddhism, found a college and love Chinese culture. Without kids, they adopted nearly 20 Western and Chinese orphans. One of Hardoon’s Western adopted daughters told me that the Hardoons appreciated Peking Opera and used chopsticks at home. The daughter was fluent in both Mandarin and Shanghai dialect,” Wang says.
In historian Xia Boming’s book “The Hardoon Couple,” the Chinese wife also helped her tycoon husband build connections with the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) royal family. After a visit to Beijing, Luo was formally regarded as the adopted daughter of Empress Longyu’s mother, thus naturally becoming the empress’ sister. The empress wrote the Chinese character “fu” or “fortune” and gifted it to Luo.
The couple hosted the royal family members during their trip to Shanghai.
After Hardoon died in 1931, the North-China Daily News reported “the couple lived together happily for 45 years and were devoted to each other. Hardoon treated Luo with respect and always spoke of her as ‘my wife’.”
“Their former home, the beautiful 26-acre Aili Garden, where the Shanghai Exhibition Center stands now on Nanjing Road W., was a gift by Hardoon to his wife. Though the garden is long gone, several buildings along Nanjing Road such as the Liza Hardoon Building still exist to keep alive the legacy of the Hardoons,” Wang says.
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