An American-trained Taiwanese architect, Joshua Pan is best known for the large building complexes and tall skyscrapers he has designed since establishing J.J. Pan & Partners in Taipei in 1981. In 2000, Pan expanded his firm to mainland China, establishing Horizon Design as his mainland subsidiary. To accommodate his growing staff there, he acquired an old industrial building in the Yangpu district of Shanghai and converted it into offices for Horizon Design. “The intent was to keep the integrity and memory of the past, while furnishing it with a touch of modernity in form and function,” says the architect.
The building, which was the first General Electric factory in Asia when it opened in 1921, served as a Japanese arsenal during the 1930s. It sits near the Huangpu River and is part of a complex of factories and warehouses built for the Shanghai Power Station Auxiliary Equipment Company. While most people today recognize the importance of restoring the grand office buildings on the Bund, not everyone understand the need to preserve parts of Shanghai’s industrial heritage. But Pan, who had apprenticed with Philip Johnson in New York in the 1960s and ’70s when Johnson was beginning to explore ways of using history in his work, saw the beauty of the old factory.
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