Church restored in 2010 glistens People's Square beacon

A recent photo of the Moore Memorial Church designed by Hudec in 1929. It has been a landmark at the People's Square. After a restoration to repair the golden windows and cracks on the façade harmed by neighboring highrises, the church reopened to the public in the spring of 2010. — Zhang Xuefei/Shanghai Daily

Hudec's Legacy

Famous Beijing journalist Wang Jun recently read a biography of architect Laszlo Hudec and asked me, "Why does Shanghai love him and what's behind 'Hudec fever'?"

Renowned for his best-selling "Beijing Record" and long-time devotion to heritage preservation in the capital city, Wang took an interest in the European architect who is relatively unknown in Beijing but repeatedly mentioned by his Shanghai friends.

Earlier this year, Hudec was voted a "Shanghai Symbol" by millions of Chinese netizans. He was the only foreigner among a galaxy of Chinese celebrities.

"Hudec's old Shanghai," a forum on China's leading cultural website Douban.com, has attracted more than 2,600 "Hudec fans." Known as wu fen, a Chinese abbreviation for Hudec fans, they visit his buildings regularly and exchange their findings.

Born in today's Banska Bystrica, Slovakia, during the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in 1893, Hudec was enlisted to fight during World War I and was caught by the Russian army and sent to a Siberian prison. In 1918 while being transferred, Hudec jumped from a train near the Chinese border and fled to Shanghai.

This architecture graduate started his own architectural firm in 1925 and went on to design 53 projects, including the Park Hotel and the Grand Theater.

But after he left for Switzerland in 1947, this once-famous name was nearly forgotten until 2008, when the Hungarian consulate general in Shanghai and local government launched the Year of Hudec.

The widely reported, year-long event fired public interest in this architect and the city's architectural heritage. Hudec's quickly soaring fame is regarded by local scholars as a cultural phenomenon — "Hudec fever."

Today, nearly half of Hudec's buildings are still used for their original function, which is good for historical preservation.

In Hudec's buildings today, one can rent a room for a night, enjoy a movie or even pray. More Hudec works, including the "Green House," will open to the public this year after renovations are completed.

As to journalist Wang's question about the city's love for Hudec, the answer is obvious. Hudec buildings have stood the test of time and are not dusty old museums. They contain many memories while creating fresh ones every day.

So this column introduces buildings designed by Laszlo Hudec, most of which have been renovated, from the start of his independent career — the Union Building — to the climax, the Park Hotel.

The latter, once the tallest building in the Far East, will celebrate its 80th birthday in December.

The Moore Memorial Church was a "golden church" in the memories of old priests. The pointed arch window was embellished with yellowish stained glass, which reflected vague sunlight even on a cloudy day and thus ensured a mysterious, religious atmosphere of "an always sunny church."

After a restoration to repair the golden windows and cracks on the façade harmed by neighboring highrises, the church reopened to the public in the spring of 2010.

"Amazed by the revived beautiful church, many Christians burst out in joyful tears at the opening ceremony when 80-year-old architect Zhang Ming was introducing the restoration on the altar," recalls Zhang Gang, a longtime manager of the church.

This is one of the two surviving local churches designed by Laszlo Hudec. F.L. Hawks Pott's 1928 book "A Short History of Shanghai" described Shanghai as a center of Protestant missionary work soon after the city opened port in 1843.

"The efforts of the missionaries were exerted in founding churches, schools and hospitals. Naturally as Shanghai developed into the largest and most important treaty port, it became the headquarters of most of the missions carrying on work in China," Pott wrote.

"It was in this period (around 1930) that Laszlo Hudec received his first commission for churches, more than 15 years after the religious buildings erected in Hungary with his father and at the Siberian prison camp," says Luca Poncellini, an architectural scholar and author of Hudec's biography.

Located at Hankou and Yunnan roads, the church was originally built in 1887 by American missionary C.F. Reid, who belonged to the Southern Methodist Church. It was renamed Moore Memorial Church after American follower J.M. Moore made a large donation to the church in 1890 in memory of his daughter.

The church came to be used as a place for social and informal gatherings in 1917 by stretching its open time. By 1925, the number of followers had increased to more than 1,200 — far too many for the church to handle.

With more donations and fund-raising activities, the construction work for a new church finally kicked off at Xizang and Hankou roads in 1929 on the former site of the Mctyeire School for Girls, where the famous Soong sisters had studied.

Hudec believed in the Lutheran Church. As the chief architect of Shanghai Societas Jesus, he had designed the New German Lutheran Church (now demolished at the site of the current Hilton Shanghai hotel and Hotel Equatorial Shanghai), as well as churches for other religious schools.