The Middle House Opens in Shanghai With Interiors by Piero Lissoni

Swire Hotels announced the official opening of The Middle House in Shanghai on 25 May 2018, after the hotel had begun receiving guests in April. It is the fourth of the group’s House hotels, after The Opposite House in Beijing, The Upper House in Hong Kong and The Temple House in Chengdu.

The setting

The hotel occupies two towers at HKRI Taikoo Hui, a development of shops and offices on Nanjing West Road in Jing’an, the city’s main luxury shopping street. The site was formerly Dazhongli, a dense neighbourhood of lane houses. One building from it, a mansion of the 1920s, was moved on rails to a new position within the development and restored as an events space. The name of the hotel plays on Shanghai’s place between the group’s northern and southern cities and on the Chinese name of the country.

One tower contains 111 hotel rooms, which the group calls studios, of 50 to 100 square metres, along with a penthouse. The other holds 102 serviced residences for longer stays.

Design

Each House has a different designer. Kengo Kuma designed Beijing, André Fu designed Hong Kong and Make Architects designed Chengdu. For Shanghai, Swire chose the Milanese architect Piero Lissoni. He used a dark palette of bronze, black lacquer, grey stone and walnut, with Italian furniture and a few strong Chinese elements: a lobby wall of hand-made green ceramic tiles, bamboo-patterned screens and a very large chandelier of Venetian glass. Rooms are generous, with deep baths and floor-to-ceiling windows. The group commissioned works by Chinese and international artists for the public spaces.

Restaurants

Three restaurants opened with the hotel. Café Gray Deluxe was a sister to the restaurant of the same name at The Upper House, led by the late Gray Kunz, with terraces overlooking the city. Frasca is an Italian restaurant under chef Stefano Pace. Sui Tang Li serves dim sum and dishes from Shanghai, Sichuan and Canton under chef Tony Ye. Mi Xun Spa, in the basement, has a heated pool and a gym, with a teahouse serving vegetarian food.

Assessment

The House hotels are known for informal service, large rooms and the absence of fuss: no check-in desk, a free minibar and staff trained to use judgment. The Middle House brought that manner to a city whose top hotels had tended towards formality, and it quickly became a favourite of visitors from the fashion and design trades. The location, between the old Concession and the Bund, makes it a practical base. Its neighbour on the same street is Louis Vuitton’s ship-shaped building.