after his wife. Architectural career The 1920s In the early months of 1922, the architectural studio of C. H. Gonda (Chinese name 鸿达) opened at 4 Ezra Road (now Xinkang Lu 新康路). Initially, it only employed one Russian assistant architect, N. N. Emanoff, and one Chinese agent, L. C. Mow, but as the practice grew, it employed other architects, engineers, interior designers, and draftsmen, mostly from among the Eastern European and the Russian communities, as well as local Chinese specialists. A business listing of C. H. Gonda's firm in July 1926 lists 11 persons on the staff, including a representative in Tianjin. Specializing primarily in commercial buildings, Gonda's studio won numerous design competitions and received major commissions in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Yantai, Tianjin, and Beijing. His first known project was the rebuilding and the modernization of the Lane, Crawford & Co. store on Shanghai's main shopping promenade, Nanking Road, which was built without interrupting the store's operation and finished in December 1922. The show windows, believed to be the largest in the Far East, spanned 48 feet and installation of extra large glass required some ingenuous engineering and the use of sturdy concrete pillars sunk into the soil. In summer 1923, Gonda designed and supervised the construction of the China and the South Sea Bank (中南银行). He commuted to Amoy (now Xiamen) several times and in 1923 was elected honorary architect to the Amoy University. Gonda's next project was the design of the Sun Sun Department Store (新新百货公司) for the local businessmen S. K. Lau, situated on Nanking Road. The construction began in early 1924, and the building, which cost 4,000,000 taels, was inaugurated in January 1926. The seven-story department store, hotel and amusement centre was topped with a tower, bringing the total height to 55 meters (180 feet). The press called Sun Sun Co. “spacious, commodious and different department store […] constructed on the most modern lines, [with] plenty of windows and good indirect lighting, comfortable lifts and adequate display counters.” In April 1925, the construction work started on the six-story Bank of East Asia (东亚银行), on the corner of Jiujiang and Middle Sichuan Roads. When the building was inaugurated in February 1926, it was called Gonda's “triumph in a style of architecture new to Shanghai.” The building boasted innovative structural decisions, such as the banking hall without a single column. This project emphatically put forward the modernist aesthetic, still