Shanghai's Former Glory
By admin on 2015-01-14

Once known as one of the most glamorous cities in the world, Shanghai and its signature strip The Bund have endured economic turmoil, war and political and cultural transformation. A new project is returning the area to its intriguing and prosperous past, with several restored buildings recently opening to the public.

Foreigners put roots in Shanghai at the beginning of last century, on the banks of the Huangpu River, south of Suzhou Creek. The east was crow-barred open and money came spilling out. China had men and resources both common and exotic. Money began to arrive in Shanghai - dug from the pockets of the opiate addicted and the coffers of warmongers. Shanghai rose up the ranks and capitalism ruled and ever would. Buildings grew that reflected the power of the new arrivals, while the facades made a passing celebration of the fact that they were, of course, in Asia. Otherwise it was business as usual.

While the old British Consulate in Shanghai now houses officials rather than diplomats, The Bund's skyline has not changed dramatically changed despite the upheavals of history.

Other buildings on the strip include the National Industrial Bank Building, carved of stone and white marble in 1929; rigid, confident, sparkling. You can still stroll into the old vault that is only touched with rust. The safety deposit boxes are still locked, although the hinges on the draws are long since snapped; ransacked. You wonder how many families in Taiwan, or maybe London or New York, still have a key in some forgotten draw bearing the sigil NIB.

The confidence of the new masters of the universe did not foresee war and liberation, but while the hubris is long gone, the buildings remain.

Now, thanks to an agreement between Sinolink and the Rockefeller Group, the area will live again, with the development of the Rockbund project at Waitanyuan set to be completed in 2014.

The 94,000-square-meter development comprises of the restoration of 11 examples of Shanghai's finest art deco and modernist architecture. The developers promise the area will be "reborn" as Shanghai's most fashionable neighborhood, as it was always intended. "We don't preserve the past," the developers said, "We free it."

Beginning in 2005, the project recently opened two renovated buildings.

The Royal Asiatic Society building, originally constructed in 1933, will continue to display beautiful items as it did 60 years ago, now as the Rockbund Art Museum. Instead of natural history exhibits from the British Museum, it will be home to Chinese contemporary art. The first exhibition, which wrapped up Sunday, featured Cai Guo-Qiang's Peasant Da Vincis. Cai's peasants have created submarines and gyrocopters; robots and UFOs.

"Anxiety is present in Chinese society over its state of transition between 'made in china' and 'created in china' and it is the hundreds of millions of rural workers who have paid the price for the construction of modern society and better urban life in the reform era," Cai told the Global Times.

"The Outer Bund was where foreigners first trod Shanghai soil and it has always been considered the most Westernized region of China," he said. "Bringing these 'tasteless' objects into this neighborhood, switching time and place, embodies a historical sense. This is not only a homage but also a show of respect to all rural workers in China."

The project is also important as China's relentless development threatens many of its historical buildings. Just down the road, or more accurately, the river, Wuxi was a tiny backwater a little over 100 years ago. By 1937, it was one of the sixth-largest industrial and economic centers in China.

During the 199os, Wuxi began planning to move industry out of the city center, but they were left with silk factories, flour mills, dockyards and electronics factories - beautiful, solid buildings with no function. Wuxi took the decision to preserve the buildings and then the arguments began.

"More important than preservation is function - these places have to be viable," asserted prominent landscape architect Yu Kongjian. Merely maintaining old buildings, like an elephant's graveyard amid the skyscrapers, is just not cost effective.

"They need to be fully functioning places of beauty," Yu added. "Meeting places, art galleries, coffee shops. To be used in the long term. We need to take what's there, preserve it and recreate it for the future and in this way we'll make China's heritage a part of her future and an open part."

Yu has long battled to turn China's historical buildings into something for the future. He believes that if you tear down and rebuild, even buildings that some find offensive, you lose a piece of yourself, just as if you try to rewrite history. While many have criticized Yu's approach, Tsinghua University's professor Zhang He thinks modernizing old buildings is, "Unnecessary meddling that detracts from the historical spirit," others would just as soon see the colonial fingerprint of the Outer Bund erased altogether.