On Barbie’s fiftieth birthday, Mattel – the world’s largest toymaker, opened the  first store dedicated to the iconic doll in the world, in Shanghai, China. 3,300 m2 mega-Barbie store holds the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of Barbie dolls and licensed Barbie products. Standing six stories tall, it glows neon pink and cost around 20 million pounds to build. Slade Architecture led the design including the exterior, interior, fixtures, and furnishings.

At the time of its completion, the 88-story, 420.5 meters -high Jin Mao Tower was China’s tallest building and the fifth tallest in the world. Until 2007 when its height was surpassed by the Shanghai World Financial Center, situated next to the building. Literally “Golden Prosperity Building”, this landmark skyscraper is located in mainland China, in Pudong district of Shanghai.

Designed by renowned architect Adrian D. Smith, Jin Mao Tower was completed in 1999. Soaring in 420.5 meters tall and covering an area of 2.3 hectares, the design of skyscraper combined the elements of traditional Chinese culture such as the tiered pagoda, with the newest architectural styles of the time. It is considered as one of the best-constructed buildings in China. The 88 floors are divided into 16 segments, each of which is 1/8 shorter than the 16-storey base. This building includes modern offices, a deluxe 5-star hotel – the Grand Hyatt Shanghai, exhibition halls, banquet halls, an observation deck, and entertainment facilities.

Project Facts
Site Area: 23,257 m2
Building Height: 420.5 m
Architect: Adrian D. Smith
Number of Stories: 88
Status: built
Construction dates: Began – 1994; finished – 1999
Building uses: mixed use including hotel, office, retail, observatory
Elevation count: 130
Architecture style: pagoda style
Materials: steel and concrete

 Project Awards
2001 • AIA • National Honor Award for Interior Architecture
2001 • AIA – Chicago Chapter • Divine Detail Award: Special Recognition
2001 • AIA – Chicago Chapter • Interior Architecture Award: Honor Award
2001 • World Architecture • World Architecture Award: Asia Category, Finalist
1999 • Institution of Structural Engineers • Structural Special Award
1998 • Structural Engineers Association of Illinois • Best Structure Award
1995 • ASHRAE – Illinois Chapter • Excellence in Engineering

At 480 meters, Shanghai World Financial Center is the China’s tallest and the third-tallest in the world. It is a mixed use skyscraper which consists of offices, hotels, conference rooms, observation decks, and shopping malls on the ground floors. Located in Pudong, Shanghai, China, the skyscraper was designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox.

The first two floors are commercial with the third to fifth floors for conference centers. The 7th to 77th floors are house offices. On the 79th to 93rd floors is located the Park Hyatt Shanghai Hotel with 174 rooms and suites (which is the second highest hotel in the world), and the 94th to 100th floors are designed to be an observatory for sightseeing. To protect the building from fierce winds, the Shanghai World Financial Center holds two tuned mass dampers below its observation floors to reduce the building’s sway during windstorms and earthquakes.

The observatory on the 100th floor at 474 meters above ground is the tallest of its kind in the world. Opened with a view from 3 levels – its lowest observation deck is 423 m, on the 94th floor, the second is 439 m high, on the 97th floor and the highest view is at 474 m above ground level on the 100th floor. On 14 September 2007 the skyscraper was topped out at 492.0 meters and became the second tallest building in the world. The 101-story has been lauded for its design and was named by architects as the best skyscraper completed in 2008.

Chinese culture is a result of the melding and collaboration of many nationalities. During its long history, minority nationalities have created their own colourful cultures. Located in the center of Shanghai in People’s Square, the Shanghai Museum is one of the most famous if not the most famous in China. Demonstrates ancient wisdom and philosophy, the museum has a collection of over 120,000 cultural pieces, including bronze, ceramics, calligraphy, Ming and Qing-dynasty furniture, jades, ancient coins, paintings, seals, sculptures and China’s national minority art. The museum also has a library collection of more than 200,000 books on Chinese art and history.

Established in 1952, the new building covers an area of 38,000 square meters  and is divided into 14 sections – eleven galleries and three exhibition halls. The exterior design of the round dome and the square base symbolizes the ancient idea of a round heaven and a square land. The structure and materials of the entire building, however, are an accomplishment of the most modern technology.

In the museum you will visit to one of the best collections of traditional Chinese artifacts on the mainland and you should spend at least half a day at the Shanghai Museum touring Chinese history. Around 120 masterpieces are displayed in the 1,200 square-meter exhibition space of the Chinese Painting Hall of the Museum. These date from the Tang dynasty to modern times but do not include contemporary works.

Located on the historic Bund, the hotel is the first Hotel Indigo for Asia Pacific. Offering spectacular views, Hotel Indigo is an ideal choice for business and pleasure.

Open its door in December, 2010, the hotel features 184 rooms and suites.  All the hotel rooms are carefully and skillfully designed and provide superb comforts and boutique style with a unique locally inspired flavour. Inspired by the old and new Shanghai, an innovative design accomplished a true feat: connecting the ancient with the modern.

The hotel has its own restaurant, exclusive meeting rooms, indoor swimming pool, relaxation area and well-equipped fitness center for guests’ convenience. Upstairs restaurant and bar option “Char” offers a Western steakhouse as well as a small lounge looking over the metropolis.

Housed in a 1930′s Art Deco architecture building, this five-star luxury hotel is located in Shanghai‘s City Centre, just steps from the historical Bund neighborhood. Combined the romance of 1930′s with every modern luxury, The Langham Yangtze Boutique is a truly unique hotel.

There are 96 exquisitely appointed rooms and suites offer a personal sanctuary of comfort. Many rooms feature a private balcony and each was designed to recapture the glamour of the era when Shanghai was famed as the “Paris of the East”. Every guestroom features a spacious bathroom, Wi-Fi access, IP Phone, iPod docking station, 42′ LCD TV, refrigerators, DVD players, premium bedding and more.

The hotel boasts a comprehensive health club equipped with state-of-the-art facilities, including a fitness studio, vitality hot pool, sauna and herbal stream room.

Situated in the heart of Shanghai, The PuLi Hotel has a prime location close to some of cityi’s best business, shopping, sightseeing and entertainment areas. Inspired by both the ancient and modern, the PuLi Hotel is an urban oasis where design and architecture blend seamlessly for a rich sensory experience.

All rooms are equipped with all contemporary facilities you need like flat screen LCD televisions, Bose wave systems and MP3 docking port, DVD players, Nespresso machines, mini bars, complementary wireless internet access, custom-designed mattresses and more.

The hotel features include the “Long Bar” that offers the longest selection of vintage and non-vintage wines in Shanghai, a heated infinity pool overlooking JingAn Park, a health club, and a library. The spa itself includes five treatment suites with a design style that merges Chinese and Thai influences. You can enjoy a range of treatments inspired by different varieties of tea such as hydrating therapies with Green Tea and Rose Tea Beautification package.

Famous, fashionable and luxury, the Fairmont Peace Hotel, placed just in front of Shanghai’s Huangpu River originates more than eight decades back.It was and still is playground for the Shanghai’ elite.Here every night was an fancy gala event and Parisian fashion show. In the 1930s some diplomats and celebrities from all over the world made its luxurious suites their home, and so the hotel became a legend.

Now the renovated Fairmont Peace Hotel give us luxury and pleasure to Shanghai’s visitors. The hotel’s beauty place it alongside Fairmont’s impressive list of heritage hotels worldwide together with The Savoy London, New York’s Plaza Hotel and Fairmont San Francisco. This monumental hotel  in Shanghai will meet every one of your expectations.

Yucca Lounge, Shanghai is a new restaurant & lounge, which was opened in 2010 at Expo Village.  The idea of David Laris is to recreate the sexy spirited style of contemporary Mexico.

Yucca Lounge with its full menu and specialty cocktail list is a place, where the most unexpected things can happen.

Recenlty a vibrant micro-lounge version was opened. It is located on the third floor of Mansion 26F at Sinan Mansions, where the customer will indulge the one’s senses with the sexy alternative cocktails served.

Waldorf Astoria Shanghai mixes the history and culture with a taste for 21st century modernism. Located at the center of  The Bund, this urban accommodation is housed in Renaissance-style building, once the legendary Shanghai Club. Built in the early 1900s, the building has been transformed in hotel with the typical Waldorf’s ultra-luxe style that offers all amenities expected by modern travelers.

The building is one of the few remaining heritage structures in Shanghai and a front has little changed. The hotel still has a whitewashed facade flanked by palladium columns. It hosts 271 rooms designed with elegant style and almost half of them offer a panoramic view of the Shanghai skyline. The Waldorf Astoria Shanghai has 4 unique restaurants, 2 bars, a patisserie, a lobby lounge, as well as a swimming pool, health club and spa provide guests with luxury amenities to rest, rejuvenate and relax.

The Bund is regarded as the symbol of Shanghai for hundreds of years. The word “bund” means an embankment or an embanked quay, and comes from urdu. Winds a 1500 meters length, the area was the financial centre of Shanghai before the Communist takeover in 1949. Being one of the Top Ten Shanghai Attractions, the Bund is a really beautiful and special place which is worth visiting.

Once the most famous street in Asia, the Bund is a tree-lined sea-front located along the Huangpu River. It is the place where the European, American and Japanese trading houses, clubs, consulates and banks had their headquarters in 1920s and 1930s. The Bund is always the symbol of Shanghai. Every morning people come here to take exercises and every evening people come here to appreciate the excellent view with their lovers.

The most famous and attractive sight which is at the west side of the Bund are the 52 various buildings of different architectural styles including Gothic, Baroque, Romanesque, Classicism and the Renaissance. Some say actually that the Bund is like “an exhibition of buildings”.

Hosted by Scott Barrack and Jules Kwan, this eco-chic boutique hotel is the first carbon-neutral hotel in China. The URBN Hotel Shanghai promises unexpected tranquillity in exclusive, sophisticated surroundings. Using reclaimed materials, such as hardwoods and house bricks, the hotel utilizes energy-efficient, water-based air-conditioning and bamboo solar shades outside the windows of its 26 rooms.

The hotel‘s funky, functional interior is designed by Brazil architect – Tais Cabral, known for her commercial, cultural, residential and retail work in Paris. You’ll find king-sized platform beds, walk-in showers and separate stone bathtubs, all the electronic gadgetry you could wish for, and even in-room fitness kits.

URBN Hotel combines locally sourced and recycled materials with modern architecture and design to create contemporary spaces inspired by China’s past, present and future. This luxury boutique hotel also houses the restaurant Downstairs by David Laris.

Located next to The Cool Docks lifestyle destination, The Waterhouse at South Bund is a chic, contemporary hotel transformed from a historic waterfront property.  Operated by The New Majestic Group from Singapore, the hotel features work of some of the world’s top designers, a casual modern European restaurant that offers a brand new culinary concept in Shanghai, an inviting roof-top cocktail lounge, and spectacular panoramic views of the Pudong futuristic skyline and the Huangpu River.  

]]> http://www.wayfaring.info/2010/12/04/the-waterhouse-at-south-bund-shanghai/feed/ 0 http://www.wayfaring.info/2010/12/01/uniqlo/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=uniqlo http://www.wayfaring.info/2010/12/01/uniqlo/#comments Wed, 01 Dec 2010 08:24:09 +0000 Asya http://www.wayfaring.info/?p=24610

UNIQLO is a popular Japanese brand among the top 10 specialty apparel retailers in the world. This brand offers a great number of basic and comfy designs for all ages with creditable quality and wallet-friendly prices. UNIQLO established its first store in 1984 Hiroshima and today has grown to over 760 UNIQLO stores worldwide. From t-shirts and sweaters to denim, outerwear and trend items, all of clothes are made according to exacting Japanese standards for quality.

That is located on Shanghai’s most prominent fashion avenue – Shanghai West Nanjing Road. Designed by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, it boasts a massive sales floor of 3,300 sq m. The entrance from the subway will feature an atrium that opens across all 3 floors and a special display of “flying mannequins” moving from top to bottom, giving customers in the new store a fresh and unexpected surprise. A wall of products was constructed and set inboard of the existing glass by several feet to allow access for maintenance while creating a light-box within to backlight the perforated skin. 

The UNIQLO Shanghai Global Flagship Store brings together the latest fashions with the highest standards in products, visual merchandising, sales and store operations, customer service and creativity.

The super-luxurious Park Hyatt Shanghai is situated between the 79th to 93rd floors of floors of the Shanghai World Financial Center, that is one of the tallest buildings worldwide (measures 101 storeys). When it opened, 1,358 foot-tall the Park Hyatt Shanghai stole the title of world’s tallest hotel (from its sister property across the street, the Grand Hyatt Shanghai). 

From a courtyard on the first floor of the building, high-speed elevators will whisk you to the 87th-floor lobby in 51 seconds. With just 174 guestrooms on offer, guests experience a true boutique hotel atmosphere while the Hyatt’s world-class service team tends to every detail. Apartment-sized, 130-square-meter King Suites, espresso machines, flatscreen TVs and wireless internet access. All guest rooms have bird’s eye views of the bright Shanghai cityscape.
At Park Hyatt Shanghai recreational amenities include an indoor pool and a health club. The hotel also features a restaurant and a business center.

Website : www.parkhyattshanghai.com