László Hudec: Shanghai’s Master Builder

You know Hudec’s buildings: The I.S.S. Building/Normandie (Wukang Apartments), that red brick beauty shaped like a streamlined 1930s cruise ship, where hundreds gather daily, waves beneath the ship, to snap a precious photo. The Park Hotel, the dramatic Art Deco building that was Shanghai’s first skyscraper and tallest building for over 50 years, a favorite spot for photos for an earlier generation. There’s the Grand Theater, a fantasy movie palace, the Gothic Art Deco True Light Building at the RockBund, the dramatic, sweeping curves of the Woo Villa—and more, many MANY more: Shanghai’s Master Builder designed over a hundred buildings in Shanghai, and a whopping 60 survive.

Who was this man, this immensely talented architect who could build in whatever style his clients required—neoclassical, Art Deco, Federalist–whose buildings still seem cutting-edge, who is so beloved by locals that he was the only foreigner listed in the 99 Symbols of Shanghai?