"A 7-meter-high lobby for a bank? I was not going to use it in an efficient way," Gabbiani says of the half-mezzanine plan. "Some people copy all the original decorations inside and they bring it back without tearing anything down. The result is a dead building. It smells old and it's like a dead museum. Italians want to bring life back to the buildings. We succeeded because we bring life back to the building."
There was considerable debate over the restoration and the model of Three on the Bund, which had completely changed the interior. At No. 18, much of the original has been preserved.
"No. 3 is a different project. They didn't have the original windows, which were changed in the 1960s. So they approached the project in a different way," Gabbiani says. "We dialogue with the originality of the building and they instead go to the contrast. They opened up a huge lot in the building and made this incredible vault inside, full space. We cleaned the facade, cleaned all the metals and maintained the same windows. We use a contemporary way to make it and they use a post-modern way. And the result is different."
In an earlier interview, Lyndon Neri who co-designed the Three on the Bund project with Michael Graves, said the conception was to "insert new architecture into what was an empty space in the original design that had only haphazardly been filled in over the passing years."
According to the Huangpu District Archives, No. 18 was renamed Chun Jiang Building, or Spring River Building, in 1955 after the Chartered Bank moved to Yuanmingyuan Road because of declining business. State-owned companies, including Chinese-Polish Joint Stock Shipping Co moved in.
Today Bund 18 is a chic lifestyle center filled with restaurants, bars, luxury shops and an art gallery, whose function is similar to that of Three on the Bund. The high hall is dotted with odd-shaped contemporary artworks; huge scarlet glass chandeliers made by the Gabbiani family hangs from the ceiling. The ambience is more open and inviting, compared with that of No. 3, which is dark-toned, luxurious and very private in feeling.
Both styles are appreciated. Both buildings were designed by the same architect early last century and reopened for high-end use in 2004.
"It's a good thing to have two so different things on the Bund because debate always brings artistic care of the buildings," Gabbiani says.
And it's also variety that has made our Bund so beautiful and so much talked about.
You may not leave a city because of cold but it may reduce your feeling of happiness.
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