we will be sharing our mixed reality design for the china baptist publication building
“Unprecedented Journey to Shanghai” is a Mixed Reality (MR) experience that reimagines the legacy of László Hudec, a Hungarian-Slovak architect who shaped Shanghai’s skyline in the 20th century. Through immersive storytelling, users embark on a personal journey retracing Hudec’s migration, creativity, and architectural achievements.
Why is it significant?
In a time when architecture is often admired but not deeply understood, our project bridges that gap by inviting users not just to observe, but to emotionally inhabit the legacy of a forgotten master. We don’t just show history—we let you walk through it.
Essentially, our project explores storytelling of the well recognized architect Lazslo Hudec’s life story through the use of mixed reality technology. Our goal is to better immerse the general audience in learning historical information in a quick and creative way.
The MR experience is set at the China Baptist Publication Building, located at No.209 Yuan Ming Yuan Road—a historic site designed by László Hudec, who built over 60 structures across the city between 1920 and 1947, including the iconic Park Hotel.
So China Baptist Publication Building is located at the Rockbund, which is the area today to the north of the classic bund area. This building shares art deco features such as you can clearly see the gothic beaks pointing on the top and it previously was mainly used for religious affairs in the last century.
This building blends Art Deco aesthetics with Gothic elements, reflecting Shanghai’s cosmopolitan energy in the early 20th century.
These elements became entry points for our design: how do we let people feel Hudec’s world through these forms? So to deepen our understanding, we conducted architectural research that traced both the stylistic and functional aspects of the building— and now, I’ll hand it over to my teammate, who will walk you through how these insights informed our spatial and interactive MR design.
Physical Space Utilization & Sound Design
As Professor Huang previously introduced, now we are all quite familiar with Hudec’s story. For our project, we drew inspiration directly from László Hudec’s life and reflected his personal story in the design of the physical space utilization. As shown in the diagram, the audience’s journey begins with Hudec’s starting point in Russia and finally arrives in Shanghai. Then, the audience will step into a recreation of Hudec’s office, where they can interact with objects that reflect his daily life and work. Finally, the journey concludes at a bulletin board displaying his major achievements, so the audience will get a chance to reflect on the legacy he left behind.
In different zones, we also used different sound designs, and they are all generated by AI. In Zones 1 and 3, the narration is in third person, so it’s Hudec’s daughter’s voice. In Zone 2, which focuses on Hudec’s office, the narration switches to Hudec’s own voice. We believe in this way, it will help tell the story more clearly and creates a more immersive experience.
The context and the story of the zone 1 experience was When World War I broke out in Europe. Hudec joined the military. But during the war, he was injured by the Russians, and became a prisoner of war in 1916. He even lost his Hungarian citizenship. He was lucky, he managed to escape from Russia using a fake Russian passport. First, he made it to Harbin in October, and by November, he had arrived in Shanghai.
As for the space design, we decided to place this in the corridor because of its length — the long, continuous path mirrors Hudec’s journey. As visitors walk through the corridor step by step, they can also feel like they're traveling with Hudec, from Russia all the way to Shanghai.
In this part the user interaction will be stepping on to the stamp placed on the floor to trigger the documentary video. Audience will see new videos and new passport pages as they walk. This immerse audience on Hudec’s complex journey
It existed in historical record that Hudec did travel with a fake Russian passport. Therefore, we expanded this detail and visualized his journey of travelling to the different cities in our design. I referenced Russian passport from that time period as well as the visa stamps for different cities. Having these stamps on the ground creates a natural leading path to nudge the audience onto the next zone.
We also extracted clips from the man who changed shanghai which is a documentary about Lazslo Hudec. We found three specific clips that aligns with the different cities he travelled to. For our spoken narration design in this project, we also took inspiration from this documentary where Hudec’s daughter speaks on Hudec’s story.
As the audience transitions from Zone 1 to Zone 2, if they hold up their phones, they will notice the beak of the building being highlighted. This design is very unique, inspired by the landmark buildings of Hannover at the time. It mimics elements of Gothic pointed arches and decorative art patterns.