Shanghai’s Art Deco Master: Paul Veysseyre’s Architecture in the French Concession

Old Shanghai’s architecture is world famous, particularly for the many Art Deco buildings designed and erected during its golden age in the 1920s and 1930s, before the Japanese invaded and the world changed. Many of the Art Deco gems in Shanghai were designed by the French architect Paul Veysseyre, the focus of this book. Coauthor Spencer Dodington has lived in and renovated many of Shanghai’s Art Deco masterpieces, and coauthor Charles Lagrange has chronicled the history of Shanghai’s French Concession in numerous articles. Together they have visited all surviving works by architect Paul Veysseyre. Having been granted with access to the private Veysseyre family archives outside Paris, plus extensive on-the-ground research in Shanghai, the two writers have created the definitive book on one of the city’s greatest architects. His works in the French Concession brought contemporary French architecture, especially the glamorous new Art Deco style, to the booming port city in the 1920s and 1930s, to its lasting glory. This book sheds light on the story of one exceptional man and his creations, and also covers the French Concession’s remarkable history and legacy.