Shanghailander.net

I have often wondered how zones of Old Shanghai were urbanised, of there was any planning at all. I recently encountered a document showing occupation zones of the French Concession in 1934. The document is in French and I have not been able to ascertain its origin or its author, but here is it for sharing with [...]

The Wukang Lu Tourist Information Center has been open for a few years now, and somehow always escaped me. Located on a tree lined street typical of the former French Concession, it would have been the perfect place to show people what this area was at the time it was created and how it compared [...]

“The Blue Lotus”, Tintin’s adventures in China, was probably the first thing I learned about Shanghai. The reality of today’s city has little to do with this cartoon anymore, but the book was an inspiration to come to Shanghai for many of us. Although it was a work of fiction, this great depiction of the [...]

The beginning of this year has been really busy with work and travelling, leaving little or no time for writing. This particularl post is about a recent trip to my home city of Dijon in Burgundy. Although I have been there numerous times since I got interested in Art Deco, I only recently discovered the [...]

I have written before about the work of Spanish architect Abelardo Lafuente in this blog. The most famous of his building was surely Antonio Ramos Summer Mansion built in 1924 on Duo Lun Lu in Hong Kou district. This particular building has been the object of study by Spanish architect Alvaro Leonardo from Polyfactory (click here [...]

The extremes of Shanghai winter always comes as a surprise. Snow falls generally once or twice a year, and only remains for a few hours, sometimes one day. This year main snowfall came on the days before Chinese New Year, at a time when the city is deserted. The combination of empty streets, snow and [...]

This new movie about Old Shanghai attracted a lot of attention and a large media campaign. With a line of stars including Chow Yun-Fat and a massive budget, it was one of the high profile movies of the end of last year. This is not the first movie about Old Shanghai that I have seen, [...]

  It seems at first that there would little connection between Shanghai and a 1927 German movie. However, METROPOLIS is not just any German movie and it is strongly linked with both Old and New Shanghai. The link with New Shanghai is probably the clearest. First shown in 1927, METROPOLIS displays a city of the [...]

There are not many things that would make me wake up early morning Sunday in winter, walk under the pouring rain for 2 hours and keep a happy smile. Taking a tour of art deco buildings with Tess Johnston is just about the only thing that could create  this miracle. This Sunday was one of [...]

Shanghai Cinema studio had been on my visit list since a long time. The studio is famous to host a rebuilt version of Old Shanghai. It quite famous has it was for period movies and TV series, including “Lust, caution” and “Shanghai Shanghai“. It takes a long drive to reach the location in SongJiang but [...]