The Modern Home (TMH) was founded in 1931 by Rudolf Hamburger at 653 Avenue Foch (now Yan’an Road). When Richard Paulick reached the city in 1933, fleeing from the National Socialists in Germany, he started working at TMH. In April 1934 the company was bought by the tycoon Victor Sassoon, who renamed it Modern Home (MH), and continued to operate until the end of 1936. During this phase, the company furnished apartments in the high-rise art deco buildings Broadway Mansion and Grosvenor House. Richard Paulick’s brother Rudolf, who had studied at the Bauhaus in Dessau and had been in Shanghai since the end of 1933, also worked at MH as, in 1936, did the Jewish architect Hans Werther from Breslau, who had studied under Otto Bartning at the Bauhochschule Weimar. Werther had previously worked for the Darmstadt-trained Chinese architect Xi Fuquan, with whom Hamburger also collaborated on individual projects.

After the liquidation of MH, Werther and the Paulick brothers took over the company under the new name Modern Homes (MHs) in December 1936. At the same time, the American Rachel Sand established the company Sand’s Furnishing, which operated under the umbrella of MHs at 871 Bubbling Well Road (now West Nanjing Road). Werther committed suicide in April 1937, after which the Paulick brothers continued to run the company until they left Shanghai at the end of 1949. During the war years, they had a third partner, H. A. Luedecke. He and his wife Eva came from Berlin and were of Jewish origin, the reason the Japanese occupiers forced them into the designated area in Hongkou. H. A. Luedecke could only leave because, as a partner in MHs, he received a special permit. Paulick also issued work certificates to other Jews, even if they were not actually employed by him.

In addition to the architects and designers employed by the company, external artists were also involved in the apartments furnished by MHs. The Austrian artist Friedrich Schiff painted a black and white picture of a snow landscape over an open fireplace in one of the living rooms.

Both MH and MHs had contacts with other foreigners and local experts. The American Rachel Sand worked with the Paulick brothers in the MHs office. In 1938, the Russian Nikolay N. Emanoff was on the list of MHs employees as, after the war, were also the Viennese architect Walter Eichberg and a female designer trained at Burg Giebichenstein in Halle (presumably V. Oppenheimer). Artists such as the Austrian Friedrich Schiff also received commissions and, in the late 1940s, more and more young local architects, such as Li Dehua, Victor Chung and Zeng Jiang, who had previously studied with Paulick at St. John’s University, also worked in the office.

In 1946 and 1947 MHs had a branch in the capital Nanjing which was headed by Rudolf Paulick. Projects there included the interior design of the embassies of Canada, Italy and the Netherlands. There were also other projects such as the Officers Club of the Chinese Airforce and the interior decoration of the residence of Sun Fo, the son of the founder of the republic, Sun Yatsen.

The creative approach of TMH, MH and MHs was in line with moderate ideas of modernity, which were strongly oriented towards the craft opportunities that existed in Shanghai. Machine production would have been too expensive and an army of local craftsmen was available for little money.
Modern Homes played an important role in the political and cultural life of the exile community, and also as a bridge to other milieus in Shanghai’s diverse society.