The Paramount () is a historical

nightclub A nightclub or dance club is a club that is open at night, usually for drinking, dancing and other entertainment. Nightclubs often have a Bar (establishment), bar and discotheque (usually simply known as disco) with a dance floor, laser lighti ...

and

dance hall Dance hall in its general meaning is a hall for Dance, dancing, but usually refers to a specific type of twentieth-century venue, with dance clubs (nightclubs) becoming more popular towards the end of the century. The palais de danse was a term ap ...

at 218 Yuyuan Road in Jing'an,

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. It was the largest ballroom in Shanghai before the

People's Liberation Army The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the military of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People's Republic of China (PRC). It consists of four Military branch, services—People's Liberation Army Ground Force, Ground Force, People's ...

established control over the city in 1949.

History

The Paramount, designed in

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

style by the architect S. J. Young (楊錫鏐 ''Yáng Xíliù'', 1899-1978) was completed in 1933,Warr, Anne: ''Shanghai Architecture'', The Watermark Press, 2007, by a group of Chinese bankers. It lay just off Bubbling Well Road (now Nanjing West Road), a major entertainment thoroughfare and was a meeting place for the wealthy elite of Shanghai society. The Ballroom lasted under its original owners before going bankrupt in 1936. In 1937, it was converted into a taxi dance hall featuring Chinese dance hostesses, which it remained until 1949. In 1956, following the

Chinese Communist Revolution The Chinese Communist Revolution was a social revolution, social and political revolution in China that began in 1927 and culminated with the proclamation of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. The revolution was led by the Chinese C ...

, the Paramount was closed and it later reopened as the Red Capitol Cinema showing Maoist propaganda films. As a result of the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...

, the building became defunct and obscure. On a rainy day in 1990, part of the structure's façade collapsed and killed a passerby on a sidewalk. In 2001, Taiwanese investors spent $3-million to refurbish the venue and reopened it as a ballroom in its original style, with red-and-gold décor. In December 2006, the Paramount's Taiwanese owners announced the ballroom was losing revenue, so they decided to convert the second and third floors into a disco. Only the fourth-floor ballroom will remain in the old style, and preservationists have expressed concerns that the structure could be damaged by the reverberations of the disco. In the last item from the BBC Radio Program: " From Our Own Correspondent" on June 16, 2012, Fuchsia Dunlop reported on a dance visit to the new Xbox. In July 2012, Tangobang chose this venue for the Shanghai Tango Festival. In March 2017, the Paramount reopened as a nightclub after it was renovated.

References

External links

"BBC Radio 4- From Our Own Correspondent"
at ''China.org.cn''
More high-resolution photographs of colonial-era Shanghai architecture
{{coord missing, Shanghai Art Deco architecture in Shanghai 1933 establishments in Shanghai