and concert rooms. Later announcements anticipated the start of the construction for autumn 1930 and increased the projected height of the building to 21 floors. The construction, intended for the Grand Realty Co., was estimated at 900,000 taels, later reevaluated to 2,500,000 taels. Another project for the Grand Realty was publicized simultaneously, estimated to cost 200,000 taels. This was a four-story office building at the corner of Burkill and Park Roads, designated to host legal and medical professionals. Neither of these projects was realized. Another unrealized 1929 project was a 7-story apartment house on the corner of Rue Lafayette and Route Pichon, in the French Concession. The building was to contain 28 apartments, garages, and a roof garden; the cost of the construction was estimated at 200,000 taels. The 1930s The next decade saw the realization of multiple designs by C. H. Gonda. In August 1930, he took charge of the reconstruction of the Whiteaway, Laidlaw & Co. department store on Nanking Road. The work intended to increase the amount of natural light and ventilation by adding steel casement windows and to visually update the façade by removing excess ornamentation. When the building was still in scaffolding, in November 1930, a fire gutted the two top floors and erased much of the recently finished interiors. In September 1930, the Shanghai Jewish School opened on Seymour Road (now Shaanxi Bei Lu 陕西北路), next to the Ohel Rachel Synagogue. The utilitarian two-story building with a capacity for 250 students was constructed at a low cost of 200,000 taels, financed largely by the donation of the deceased entrepreneur S. Perry. The building contained an auditorium and a school canteen and was modeled after the recently built schools in Holland and the USA. Its construction, devoid of “superfluous and meaningless ornaments,” prioritized the access of maximum daylight and air into the classrooms. Luna Park, the open-air amusement centre in the port district of Yangtszepoo, constructed after C. H. Gonda's designs, opened in July 1931, in time for the first citywide beauty pageant Miss Shanghai. The architect called Luna Park an “outstanding piece of outdoor construction and architectural work in Shanghai today.” That year Gonda also designed the interior of the Russian-owned restaurant Valencia, in the Hall & Holtz building on Sichuan Road. Commissioned by the China Theatres Ltd., the Cathay Theatre (国泰电影院), on Avenue Joffre, opened on the first day of 1932, to become