Report: Soho Fuxing Lu – an Urban District for Shanghai
Soho China is the largest and presumably most profitable real estate developer of office space in all of China. It was founded in 1995 by Zhang Xin, a former banker, and Pan Shiyi, who had worked in a federal agency responsible for oil management. The company invests almost exclusively in Beijing and Shanghai’s central business districts – and it invests in iconic contemporary architecture by the likes of Zaha Hadid and Kengo Kuma. The German firm gmp – Gerkan, Marg und Partner – has long been involved in large-scale projects in China and has just completed two large complexes in Shanghai for these developers: Soho Bund is the culmination of the famed promenade in the city centre on the west bank of the Huangpu, and Soho Fuxing Lu is a new focal point on the southwest edge of the central business district.
