The Jinjiang Hotel seems to improve with age, basking in its Art Deco design and the prestige that comes from striding the apex of Shanghai's life for eight decades.

Nestled in a breezy crook of Shanghai's former French Concession, the property's international flavor comes courtesy of Victor Sassoon, an Iraqi-Jewish tycoon and real-estate active in Shanghai in the 1920s and 30s.

In the late 1920s, Sassoon commissioned the construction of an 18-story residential hotel modeled after luxury high-rises in the United States. When completed in 1929, the Cathay Mansions, named for Sassoon's Cathay Land Company, stood as the tallest building in Shanghai.