Hudec's Green House still looks modern

A corner of the first floor of the Green House faces a big balcony. (Shanghai Daily/Zhang Xuefei)

The Green House was loved so much by its owner D.V. Woo that he and his concubine lived there even after most of his relatives emigrated abroad after 1949.

Woo once said, "If I die, I will die in the Green House."

And he did. In August 1966, at the start of the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), Woo and his mistress committed suicide in the house by taking sleeping pills and turning on the gas.

Woo had lived in the house for 28 years.

After Woo's servants were relocated, the house was used as office space by the Little Red Guards News under the Shanghai Education Bureau, the headquarters of Shanghai Wen Gong Wu Wei (Wen Gong Wu Wei is a word used during the "cultural revolution" that literally means "attack with the pen and defend with the sword") and Shanghai Tricycle Union.

In 1979, the building became the Shanghai Urban Planning & Design Research Institute's home, which has used it until today.

Some old employees of the institute described the house as the "headquarters" of Shanghai urban planning. Most of the city's urban plans were drafted in it, including the 1992 plan to develop the Pudong New Area.

"It was very crowded, but the architectural details in public areas were well preserved, including Italian travertine and the hollow flower decorations on the first floor," famous architect Tang Yu'en from Shanghai Xian Dai Architectural Design Group recalls of her 1980s visit to the building.

She is also the chief architect who was tasked with renovating the Green House in 2011 and previously worked on the renovation projects of both Waldorf Astoria Shanghai on the Bund and the Fairmont Peace Hotel.

In 1988, the institute moved to its new office building south of the Green House. Owing to a budget shortfall, a Taiwan company was granted use of it after paying for repairs. The company redecorated the Green House and used it as a restaurant/bar for several years.