Vesper — Art-Deco Cartoon Cat, Hotel Entrance, Shanghai

The building opened in 1934. The brief was one sentence long: the cat should look as though it had always been outside the door.

Reading the building

We spent two days in the lobby before drawing anything. The hotel’s vocabulary is stepped geometry: fluted pilasters, chevron inlay, a lift surround of concentric rectangles, brass everywhere. A piece built in that language sits next to the door as though it came with the stonework.

Making a cartoon that is also a period piece

The cartoon survives because the proportions are still absurd — the head is far too large, the neck far too long, the body a smooth taper with no anatomy in it. The period comes entirely from the surface treatment.

The body was divided into stepped bands: four horizontal bands of equal width rising up the chest, each one lipped about 4 mm proud of the one below. The ears are built as small stacks of three flat planes rather than as curved cones. The tail, laid flat at the base, was given a chevron inlay in gold leaf.

The gold is real leaf, applied over a red bole, and it is confined to the ear edges, two bands on the chest and the tail inlay. Any more and the piece turns into a Chinese New Year decoration; any less and the deco reads as ordinary black furniture.

Black lacquer, outdoors

Straight black lacquer on a humid Shanghai street is a hard-wearing proposition to promise, so the finish is a filled two-pack system built up in nine coats with flow coats between, hand-flatted at the end. It reflects like lacquer and behaves like automotive paint.

At the door

It is set on a low dark plinth to the left of the entrance, where it catches the brass light from the lobby after dark. The concierge team polishes it every morning along with the door furniture, and the hotel shop now sells a photograph of it, which nobody asked for and nobody objects to.