Swatch celebrates landmark Shanghai hotel with bright & splashy New Gent

Shanghai is contemporary China’s most exciting city, and right where the Bund meets the Nanjing Road stands The Swatch Art Peace Hotel. Utterly unique in concept and vision, the Swatch Group project has transformed Shanghai’s most prominent landmark hotel into a thriving hive of creativity. At any one time, up to 18 artists from around the world live and work on the premises. Sound and video artists, photographers, musicians, conceptual artists and composers: all are pushing the boundaries of contemporary world culture – and all are guests of Swatch. Visitors come to the hotel from around the world to admire its lavishly restored lobby and carved wooden staircase. A lift takes them swiftly to the rooftop terrace for spectacular views of the Bund and the skyscrapers of Pudong, Shanghai’s ultramodern financial and business district. They may also wish to dine at the hotel’s superb 5th-floor restaurant, Shook!

To encourage people to visit the hotel and learn about the project, Swatch has created Peace of Art (SUOZ160). This painterly New Gent juxtaposes architectural line drawings depicting the restored hotel with splashes and patches of crimson, light blue, rust and yellow on a dark blue ground that extends from the dial to the case and strap. The words Swatch Art Peace Hotel appear in colourful block letters on the dial, encircled by Arabic numerals at all hours.

As an exclusive special treat, visitors to The Swatch Art Peace Hotel and its ground-floor Swatch boutique will be offered the Peace of Art (SUOZ160-1) in colourful Special Packaging containing a dark blue passport. Boutique personnel will stamp the customer’s new passport with a special «chop» – a unique souvenir of their visit to the world-famous Swatch Art Peace Hotel. This special packaging will be available only at this one location in Shanghai. Peace of Art will also be sold at Swatch points of sale around the world, but without the passport and special packaging.