Asia Building, Protected heritage building in Huangpu District, China
The Asia Building is an eight-storey building at No. 1 Zhongshan East Road, on the corner of the Bund and East Yan'an Road in Huangpu. Its reinforced-concrete frame is clad in granite and fair-faced brick, with a symmetrical eclectic facade in three horizontal sections: Baroque-influenced base and top, modernist middle, and two-storey Ionic columns at the centre. The plan forms a ring around a light well, and the southeast corner is concave.
The lot belonged to British brothers James and Hayes Hogg, whose firm Hogg Brothers opened in Shanghai in 1861; they sold it in 1899 to merchant George McBain. McBain's company demolished the existing house and built this eight-storey block, completed in 1916 and designed by Moorhead & Halse. In 1917 Royal Dutch Shell's Asiatic Petroleum division took most of the floors and gave the building its name.
The name comes from the Asiatic Petroleum Company, the Shell subsidiary that rented most of the building from 1917 and sold kerosene and candles for lighting. Two shell-shaped ornaments of the Royal Dutch company were removed from a facade column when the firm left; they are now displayed at the Shanghai History Museum. Since 2022 the building houses Christie's Shanghai headquarters and the Bund One Art Museum.
The Asia Building stands at No. 1 Zhongshan East Road, at the corner of East Yan'an Road, at the southern end of the Bund. The entrance faces the Bund; the rounded southeast corner marks the junction. The Bund One Art Museum opened inside in 2022, and Christie's held its first Shanghai auction here on 1 March 2022. As of 2015 much of the building stood empty.
Two shell-shaped ornaments of the Royal Dutch company once stood on a column of the facade. When the company left, they were removed and taken to its Beijing Yuanmingyuan office; they are now displayed at the Shanghai History Museum.
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