News On November 1st, the Swatch Group officially inaugurated the Swatch Art Peace Hotel in Shanghai. This space is not only dedicated to the brands of the group, but also devotes its space to contemporary art.
The Swatch Art Peace Hotel is at the crossroads of the Nanjing Road and the Bund in Shanghai’s former financial district. As important to the city today as Fifth Avenue to New York and the Champs-Elysées to Paris, Shanghai’s iconic avenue stretches for more than a mile along the west bank of the Huangpu River. Fifty-two buildings from the 19th and early 20th century were once at the heart of the foreign concessions. Diverse architectural styles recall western European tastes ranging from Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque to Neo-Classical, Beaux-Arts, and Art Deco (Shanghai has one of the richest collections of Art Deco structures in the world). Today the Bund welcomes thousands of visitors every day to its monuments, restaurants, luxury boutiques and fashion houses, and special events attract even more.
The landmark Swatch Art Peace Hotel enjoys the protected status as a cultural monument. Conceived and lead by Swatch Group, the restoration project was approved in 2008. The Group appointed Parisian agency Jouin Manku to design the hotel interiors, and work began that year. The project drew upon the skills of experts in the field of historic preservation to ensure that due respect was paid to the hotel’s heritage and status as one of Shanghai’s best-known landmarks. Restoration experts made use of archival documents and period photographs to guide their work.
Built in 1908 as the Palace Hotel and later known as the South Building of the Peace Hotel, today’s Swatch Art Peace Hotel is located on the Bund in Shanghai. The ground floor hosts four Swatch Group brands: Breguet, Omega, Blancpain and Swatch boutiques occupy 2,000 of the building’s 11,300 square meters. Six storeys high, the Swatch Art Peace Hotel hosts 18 workshop-apartments for visiting guest artists, invited to live and work on the premises for periods of up to six months. A multipurpose exhibition space houses a diverse range of cultural and commercial events. Themed guest suites and rooms, the world-class Shook! Restaurant and a rooftop terrace complete the international art hotel’s facilities.
Swatch Art Peace Hotel: the perfect link between Swatch and the art. For more than 25 years the popular Swiss brand has worked closely with leading artists to create a series of extraordinary «Swatch Art Special» wristwatches. By treating Swatch as «a canvas on the wrist», these artists help art escape from museums and jump to the streets and the wrists of ordinary people. Swatch Group expects this luxury space to contribute in a significant manner to the cultural and artistic development of Shanghai. Artists will benefit from their exposure to an international public, and it is hoped that the new art hotel will serve as an open door to the world, a permanent invitation to engage in cultural exchange.
To help celebrate the opening of The Swatch Art Peace Hotel and introduce the Hotel’s new role to the people of Shanghai, Swatch organized a day-long Street Painting event. The Swiss watchmaker set up 38 large canvases at intervals along the Bund, and provided participating artists with brushes, paint and all the tools necessary to make a work of art. Throughout the day, the artists, school children, art students and members of the public made art in the street, Swatch Art at the Bund.
November 21, 2011
