REVIVING A MASTERPIECE

Located in Shanghai’s prestigious Jing’an district is a grand, three storey villa with a graceful beaux arts exterior and orange dome. Now known as Prada Rong Zhai, this Western-style garden villa has a rich history, one that’s peopled with opera singers, entrepreneurs, journalists, and one of China’s wealthiest and most powerful families in the 20th century.

For the first half of the 1900s, it was the home of Yung Tsoong-King (Rong Zongjing) and his progeny. Yung was known as the “Flour King of China” for his role in establishing flour mills all over the nation. He also built cotton mills and