The Peace Hotel (Shanghainese: Wubin Vaedi) is a hotel on The Bund in Shanghai, China, known as the Fairmont Peace Hotel run by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts of Canada.[1] The hotel has two different buildings. The north building, completed in 1929 as Sassoon House, originally housed the Cathay Hotel. Across Nanjing Road, the south building was built as the Palace Hotel in 1908, and is today a residence and studio for artists, known as The Swatch Art Peace Hotel.
North Building
The larger North Building was originally called Sassoon House. It was built by Sir Victor Sassoon, of the Sassoon family, which built a Shanghai business and real estate empire in the early 20th century. He was a British Sephardic Jew of Iraqi origin, educated at Harrow School and Cambridge University. His family owned the trading company "E.D. Sassoon & Co.", which managed extensive business interests throughout Asia. Sassoon House was the first high-rise building built by Victor Sassoon, and one of the first tall buildings in the Far East, rising to 77m top the top of the tower, fifty feet taller than the next tallest building on the Bund. Sassoon bought a full city block on a prominent spot on the Bund, with long frontages on both sides.[2]