Shanghai Senses: Sights
Architecture
By Barbara Koh
No other place on Earth has such a mélange of architectural styles as Shanghai. German Renaissance, Tudor, Turkish, Gothic, Spanish Colonial, Art Deco, Mediterranean, Italianate, French and Shanghainese—they’re all here, concrete proof of the city’s historic cosmopolitanism. The world’s refugees and immigrants flocked to Shanghai and built homes, workplaces and communities, never imagining that their occupancy or ownership might be only temporary.
From 1941 until the end of the war, when Japan was in control of the entire city, construction basically came to a halt. That remained the case after the 1949 Communist revolution, too, as the Communist Party distributed the city’s wealth to poorer areas of the country. As the population ballooned, Shanghai’s buildings were increasingly stuffed, added onto and subdivided. Many architectural gems were damaged or destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, as the Red Guards were free to rampage against anything that was Western, bourgeois or traditional.
In the early 1990s, the central government finally gave Shanghai the go-ahead to embark on economic development. The city has taken the endorsement and run with it. Whole neighborhoods have been modified to make way for high-rises and parks.
The Shikumen
Yu Yuan (Yu Gardens) and the surrounding Old City offer a glimpse of traditional Chinese architecture. The Ming Dynasty-style buildings (most of them are modern-day reconstructions) have tile roofs that swoop upward at their corners, whitewashed walls and latticework. On Fangbang Lu are several wood-panelled houses built in the early 1900s. Just as 100 years ago, several have shops on the ground level and residential space above.
Roof of a building in Yu Yuan. Photo by bittermelon
The most iconic form of native-Shanghai architecture is the lilong or longtang, a walled-off block of rows and rows of housing with narrow, semi-public alleyways running between them. As Chinese refugees continued to pour into Shanghai’s foreign enclaves through the early 1900s, seeking sanctuary from the fighting between the imperial government and rebels (and later the civil war), Western entrepreneurs realized there was a need for (and a potential fortune in) housing. The lilong was designed to fit lots of people in a limited space and thus maximize profits. The lane neighborhoods became tightly-knit communities where virtually nothing went unnoticed. Each house’s entrance opened directly into a lane, where adults would come out to gossip, play cards, scrub clothes or shell beans and kids would play ball.
A lilong in the former French Concession. Photo by Payton Chung.
Inside a lilong, with additions and modern shikumen-like facades. Photo by The Pocket.
The houses were typically shikumen (literally “stone-gate house”), named after their doorways. The entrance was a wooden door framed by three stone slabs, often stylishly carved, which led to a small and enclosed courtyard and then the living quarters. Thus, the shikumen had an air of security, solemnity and exclusiveness.
A shikumen was initially meant for one family. The houses were quickly subdivided, however, as the city’s population burgeoned. Nowadays it’s not uncommon to find five, eight or 10 families in one shikumen, sharing a stove inside and an outdoor sink or tap. Because space was at a premium, courtyards were soon omitted during construction—or families expropriated them and turned them into rooms. Often floors were added on top of the roof. Most shikumen still lack indoor plumbing and running water, so residents continue to rely on chamber pots.
About 60 percent of today’s Shanghainese grew up in shikumen. Due to the metropolis’ tearing down and building up, shikumen now amount to only a fraction of their number in 1949. Most are in the Jing An, Huangpu and Hongkou sections of town.
Concession-era Cosmopolitanism
Shanghai’s signature concession-era architecture resulted from an extraordinary explosion of growth and building over a short time span. Although foreigners never accounted for more than 10 percent of Shanghai’s total population, they dominated politically and economically. Thus they were able to leave an indelible imprint on the city that was disproportionate to their numbers.
The Bund circa 1935, courtesy stevechasmar.
Making an especially deep impression was Palmer and Turner. On the Bund, the British architectural firm was behind several of the stately structures, including the leader of the Bund, the neoclassical Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank building (now the Pudong Development Bank). Palmer and Turner also designed the Customs House next door, the Peace Hotel, and the buildings now called Three on the Bund and Bund 18. At Jiangxi Lu and Fuzhou Lu, the firm was responsible for twin high-rises across the street from each other, which originally contained plush apartments.
The Normandie, built in 1924 and designed by Ladislaus Hudec. Photo by Dennis Wu.
The 1936 Gothic/Tudor mansion built by Swedish shipping magnate Eric Moller was supposedly designed to fulfill his daughter’s wish for a fairy-tale castle. It’s now run as a boutique hotel. Photo by Augapfel.
Detail of the Hamilton House. Photo by John Meckley.
Ladislaus Hudec, a Czech refugee who arrived in Shanghai in 1918, was another prolific architect. His buildings include: the brick Normandie, which has an inviting, front curve and resembles New York City’s Flatiron building; Shanghai Arts and Crafts Museum, one of the most lavish mansions in the French Concession, which was built for a French official and later became the residence of Shanghai’s first Communist mayor; the 1934 Park Hotel on Nanjing Lu, which was topped by a nightclub with a retractable roof and which inspired the eminent China-born architect I. M. Pei; the American Club, which boasted an “American Georgian colonial” style and imported American bricks and is now the People’s Court; the Moore Memorial Church, with its textured brickwork; an Art Deco manor on Tongren Lu now occupied by the Shanghai City Planning Institute; and the Grand Theatre, considered the Far East’s finest cinema when it opened in 1933.
In the former French Concession and International Settlement, Art Deco, Chicago, Mediterranean, neoclassical and Tudor styles on are display. The British Morriss family, whose wealth was built on publishing and casinos, owned a block-long estate with two English manors which was conveniently adjacent to the family-run dog racetrack.(The compound now has restaurants and the Ruijin Guesthouse). Hengshan, Gao An, Yongfu and Fuxing are just some of the roads dotted with former stately villas of tycoons, politicians and top mobsters and Art-Deco-accented apartments where middle-class and professional expatriates and Chinese lived.
Preservation and innovation
The past couple of decades have seen some efforts in Shanghai to preserve rather than demolish and to combine bold creativity with Chinese elements. Along the Bund, designers consulted the original blueprints and photos of the aged bank building at No. 18 to plan its restoration. After painstaking clean-up and much handiwork, the building reopened with luxury shops and restaurants. The 1998 Shanghai Grand Theatre, designed by Jean-Marie Charpentier of France, is a sleek study in white and glass but its curved roof mimics that of a traditional Chinese pagoda. Shanghai Centre on Nanjing Lu, which contains the Portman Ritz-Carlton Hotel, is shaped like the Chinese character shan, or mountain. And there’s precedent-setting Xintiandi near the site of the first Chinese Communist Party congress, which has made shikumen trendy. Taking two square-blocks of shikumen, the developer razed the interiors and kept some of the old grey facades and doorframes to create an upscale shopping and entertainment complex.
The Bund is Shanghai’s most popular attraction. Photo by Herry Lawford.
Shanghai World Financial Center (aka “The Razor”), Jin Mao Tower, Oriental Pearl TV Tower. Photo by Barbara Koh.
Pudong has a more theatrical if not ostentatious air, with the Oriental Pearl TV Tower’s pink and silver balls, the gold Aurora slab that flashes video clips and messages after dark, and the giant globes flanking the Shanghai International Convention Centre. The Lupu Bridge toward the south has the longest arched span in the world, an extraordinary 553 metres (1,815 feet). Next to the Art-Deco-ish Jinmao Tower is the 101-story, 492-metre high Shanghai World Financial Centre, China’s tallest building and the world’s third-tallest. The World Financial Centre had barely opened when ground was broken on a neighbor that’ll be even taller. The 632-metre Shanghai Tower is due to be completed in 2014.
Barbara Koh was a freelance journalist in Shanghai, where she wrote Shanghai Chic and produced articles for Bloomberg, the New York Times, Artzinechina.com, Newsweek and other media. After five years in Shanghai, she returned to San Francisco in 2009 and has been working on the Asian Art Museum-led Shanghai Celebration and hunting for the best luo bo si bing in town. Being half-Shanghainese, she can't imagine living anywhere in China but Shanghai. This excerpt was taken from Shanghai Chic (Editions Didier Millet, 2006)
