Park Hotel

The Park Hotel (国际饭店, Guójì Fàndiàn) is a 24-floor tower on Nanjing West Road, opposite People’s Park, and for decades it was the tallest building in Shanghai. It opened on 1 December 1934, and a marker in its lobby sits at the point from which the city’s survey grid was set.

The Joint Savings Society (四行储蓄会) commissioned it. English Wikipedia says the society was formed in 1923 by merging four banks. The architect was László Hudec (邬达克), a Hungarian architect who worked in Shanghai. Chinese Wikipedia dates the start of foundation work to May 1931 and the start of above-ground work to August 1932. Sources disagree on the opening: a Shanghai government page gives 1 December 1934, while Chinese Wikipedia gives June 1934.

The tower is about 83.8 m high, with 22 floors above ground and two below. In the 1930s it was called the tallest building in the Far East. It remained the tallest in Shanghai into the early 1980s; Wikipedia editions give 1982 or 1983.

In 1950 Shanghai set up its plane coordinate system, using the centre of the rooftop flagpole as the origin. During renovation in October 1997 a marker was placed in the lobby, directly below the flagpole, and opened to the public. The Shanghai state-assets commission’s account calls it an “origin” marker and describes it as a secondary point. It is the “zero point” visitors hear about.

The English name comes from Park Road, the street now called Huanghe Road, which meets Nanjing West Road beside the hotel. A foreign manager suggested it, according to Chinese Wikipedia.

After 1949 the hotel belonged to the Jinjiang group. It had major overhauls in 1988 and 1997, and the ground-floor lobby was restored to Art Deco style in 2001. The hotel was listed as a national key cultural relic protection unit in 2006 and included in the first batch of China’s 20th-century architectural heritage in 2016.

The building is a working hotel. That account says the lobby marker is open to the public but gives no hours.