Wu Tongwen residence

Wu Tongwen residence

In Jing'an District of Shanghai, at the intersection of Tongren Road and Beijing West Road, namely 333 Tongren Road, there is a garden house with modern architectural style. Because its owner is Wu Tongwen, it is called Wu house. Built in 1937, this four story reinforced concrete building with green tiles on its exterior wall covers an area of 1732 square meters, which is also known as "green house" by old Shanghainese.

Basic introduction

The appearance of the building is like a large mail ship moored in the harbor. Its beautiful "ship string" arc and straight line constitute the "hull" facade, which is simple and dynamic. It is the last work created and designed by the famous Hungarian architect Hudec after living in Shanghai for 20 years. In the design of Wu's house, he shows the streamline lines very smoothly and has a strong sense of modernity, which can be called the perfect works of Hudec's design career.

The building, with various contents, exquisite decoration and advanced equipment, was one of the most luxurious houses in Shanghai when it was completed. The house is surrounded by a wall, with a spacious garden inside. Cars can drive inside, enter and exit through two doors, and there is a large garage. In addition to the living room, dining room, sun room, master's bedroom, children's bedroom, dressing room, bathroom, box room, Chinese and Western food kitchen, dining room, accounting room, vault, servant's room, laundry room, concierge and garage, there are banquet hall, dance hall, billiard room, bar room on the ground floor, chess room, flower and bird room on the top floor. Indoor facilities are luxurious. The ground floor hall is equipped with spring floor, glass ceiling and sunlight room for dancing. The coal bathroom is equipped with complete cooling and heating devices. Streamlined stairs made of marble imported from Italy, cast copper handrails, stair guardrails made of glass veneer, and copper radiators embedded in the facade of the inner wall are still novel and unique in today's era of architectural decoration. This modern residence is also the first private residence in Shanghai to install small elevators. The hostess believes in Buddhism. In a completely western modernist building, there is also a traditional Chinese Buddhist hall with a sacrificial table, a divine seat and a caisson.

Layout design

The building is located in the north of the homestead, close to Beijing West Road, so a large garden is set aside in the south of the house. The living room, dining room and other rooms on the second floor are inward. There is a spacious living terrace facing south in front, covering an area of more than 70 square meters. In front of the hall, there are a row of floor to floor long windows, which make the outdoor terrace and the outside garden integrate into one, with a panoramic view of the beautiful scenery. At the west end of the terrace, there is a large and magnificent outdoor spiral staircase, from which the second floor can directly lead to the garden. Indoor and outdoor, upstairs and downstairs, are all integrated. The third floor is the master's bedroom. The building is retracted inward again, and there is a balcony outside, covering an area of about 40 square meters. The top floor is covered by the balcony in front of the children's bedroom. The top terrace, part of which has a semicircular awning, forms a semi indoor and semi outdoor space. The living terrace on each floor is facing the garden. This kind of space is called "gray space" in architectural art, which is very interesting. Because of the layers of the terrace, it can be combined with the natural space of the garden to form the unity of indoor and outdoor space. In front of the main building, there is a large lawn covering an area of 1367 square meters. Trees such as holly are planted around the lawn. There is almost no horticultural arrangement on the lawn, which is spacious and elegant, and sets off the main building.

artistic value

The shape of the building is completely western modernist, with smooth walls and large glass windows. The shape is simple, the lines are smooth, and the contrast between virtual and real is strong. At the same time, the designer has the intention to make the gradually shrinking terrace form into a ship. The terrace is the deck of the ship, but it is also an architecture. In other words, it highlights the architectural personality by metaphorical means, making it the pioneer of modern architectural style garden house in Shanghai.

On the completion of the "green house", Hudec patted Wu Tongwen on the chest: "I can assure you that even in another 50 years, the modern sense of this house is still ahead of time. Even in another 100 years, I believe it will not be out of date! She should be one of the classics. " In order to ensure its classic uniqueness, Wu Tongwen even bought out the design drawings and locked them in the safe. In order to get a glimpse of this super modern first mansion in the Far East, Leighton Stuart, then president of Yanjing University, paid a special visit and took a group photo at the duck egg shaped marble dining table on the second floor at the invitation of Wu Tongwen. The cost of "green house" is quite high. On Christmas Eve in 1948, a foreign official was willing to buy the green house as a consulate for a 10000 ton cruise ship plus 500000 US dollars, but Wu Tongwen was not willing to because the green house was not only his residence, but also his "spiritual home".

Historical changes

Wu Tongwen, the owner of the "green house", was born in 1908, the 34th year of Guangxu. He is the son-in-law of Suzhou pigment King Pei Runsheng and the ninth uncle of the world-famous architect I.M. Pei. Bei is a rich man in Suzhou. He once owned the lion forest, a famous garden in Suzhou. Wu Tongwen, the son-in-law of the Dragon riding, is also a descendant of the Wu family, a famous family on the beach of Shanghai. After Wu Tongwen inherited his family business, in the mid-1930s, the Anti Japanese war was approaching, and the Kuomintang was in urgent need of "army green" pigment because of its large-scale expansion of the army. The lucky young master seized the opportunity in time to launch the army green pigment. He soon became the first in the pigment Market and became prosperous for a while, adding to the family business. Since then, Wu Tongwen regarded green as his lucky color. He started to build the first luxury house in the Far East and chose green. Even his private car was also a green "BMW", which was called "green boss" on the beach of Shanghai. It's also said that he took a fancy to this land because Tongren Road was originally called Hatong Road, and Beijing West Road was originally called aiwenyi road. The former had the word "Tong" and the latter had the word "Wen", which together became the name of Wu Tongwen.

After the liberation of Shanghai, the Communist Party carried out the United Front Policy of "utilization, restriction and transformation" to the national capitalists. Wu Tongwen was still at ease in his green house, and the big dance hall with spring floor was still the place where the former tycoons, the old and the young loved to gather. Until 1966, when the "Cultural Revolution" came, Wu Tongwen, 58, committed suicide one day after dinner in his bedroom on the third floor with a cup of coffee.

After the "Cultural Revolution", the house was used by the Shanghai urban planning and Design Institute, and the house has been rebuilt several times, so it is hard to find the scenery of the past. In 2001, Gu Chuanhui, a famous architect in Taiwan, rented the "green house" and spent 8 million yuan to renovate it. In 1994, the whole building was listed as an excellent modern building protection unit in Shanghai.

Address: 333 Tongren Road, Shanghai

Longitude: 121.44915771484

Latitude: 31.227764129639

Chinese PinYin : Wu Tong Wen Zhu Zhai