Shanghailander

Thanks for giving us our city back

Shanghai World expo 2010 attracted the eyes of the world to our city. Thousands came from abroad to see it, but millions traveled within China to attend. This gigantic tourism fair was a great opportunity to introduce the world to many people that had never seen it before. Just like the expos from the beginning of the century it offered a window to the world for many, most of them eager to discover it. In that sense it was a great success and will mark the mind of millions.

Preparation for the expo took years and was surely not confined to the expo site. The whole city was painted fresh, including many of the old colonial buildings. I have heard many time that the expo deadline was sometimes an excuse for demolishing old relics faster, but it’s not always that clear cut. The destroyed districts were doomed anyway and the attention to the city allowed some renovation to take place, at least on the outside of the buildings.

The expo drew millions to the expo site, many of them staying over in Shanghai or in the surrounding cities. For many visitors it was the first time in Shanghai and the city itself also attracted crowds. Like in any cities, there are some focal points that one must visit when coming in, including the Bund and Nanjing Road. After the daily visit to the expo site, most of the visitors went to admire the re-developed Bund and the lights of Pudong. The crowd covered the whole area making the traffic in this crucial part of the city nearly impossible. Moreover, buses were occupying most of the street space, pushing other vehicles around and creating giant traffic jams. The same happened to the end of Nanjing Road that almost turned pedestrian every night. Of all it is now gone and Shanghainese can now enjoy the Bund and the whole area without being engulfed into a sea of people.

The expo also clearly showed the staggering difference between the sophisticated and urbanized Shanghainese, and crowds from the country side. Most of those people had little idea on how to behave is such a big city, just like crossing street crossing and simple politeness. Driving was also an issue as cars from the surroundings provinces flocked the cities, often blocking the traffic while figuring the way to go. Just like Parisians often complain about “provincial drivers” in Paris, Shanghai cab drivers had little patience for the out of town people. Just like others major cities in the world, Shanghai is quite different from the rest of the country, and the contrast was never so blatant as during the expo.

Fortunately, Shanghai Expo 2010 has been a success, leaving a positive durable impact on the city. I am still disappointed that although the expo took place in Shanghai, no mention was done within it about Shanghai history and its special relationship with abroad… but the millions of people looking at the city and discovering will surely have a long lasting effect. Finally, the crowds are now gone, leaving us some time and space to enjoy the city again and all its new developments. Thank you for giving us our city back.

French view on Man’s Fate

Old Shanghai was an inspiration for writers, some of them never having actually set foot in the city. The most famous book is probably 1933’s Andre Malraux “La condition humaine”, translated as Man’s fate in English. My friend Paul French will be giving a speech about it next week (see link to the event’s webpage), giving me an opportunity for a post on this book.

Man’s Fate takes place in 1927, during the Northern Expedition when the Kuomintang (nationalist party) armies along with their allies re-conquer the main part of China. After 1911’s revolution, the central government in Beijing quickly lost all control of the Chinese territories when several provincial lords took over their provincial armies and started to conquer their neighbours. Nationalist and Communist parties had been allied, a number of Russian advisors helping the Kuomintang. At the same time, Russian advisors where also helping the communist party to spread the revolution among the workers population in the large cities in particular Wuchang (South of today’s Wuhan) and Shanghai. In 1927, while the armies of the Northern Expedition where approaching, the Communist started massive strikes to try and take over the city. The Kuomintang used gangsters to break the strikes and take back the city. Many of the communist leaders were killed on the current site of the Longhua Cemetery. From that point on, Nationalists and Communists started to fight the civil war.

The novel takes place against this background, as the main character wants to assassinate Chiang Kai Shek to stop him taking over Shanghai. All characters are linked to him and this action. Andre Malraux never actually came to Shanghai, and the novel lacks in substance about the city, describing as hot and humid in March which is most often not the case. As there is little attention for the city itself, the novel is centered on the characters, some of them being inspired by real historic people. For example, Kyo who leads the uprising of the communist forces in Shanghai is probably inspired by Zhou Enlai who was actually leading the communist party and the strikes in Shanghai at that time. Living in the French Concession, he nearly escaped being captured by the French police at one point before becoming the long serving prime minister of China under Mao Zedong. Since Zhou Enlai studied in Paris in the 1920’s, it is even possible that him and Malraux actually met in the French capital. The other character clearly inspired by a real person was Vologuine, the Russian advisor to the communist who in real life was Mikhail Borodin, a soviet agent who helped both the Kuomintang and the Chinese communist party in the 1920’s. It is clear that Borodin helped Zhou Enlai and the party for the Shanghai uprising. Finally, the director of the French Chamber of commerce, called Ferral in the book, actually lived in the French Concession. The former residence of the director is now the Shanghai art & craft museum.

Man’s fate is not so much about Shanghai as about the fate of all the characters. It was much acclaimed when published and received the Goncourt Price, the highest price in French literature, in 1933.

New Heng Shan Cinema

Fake art deco or Fako in Shanghai was discussed in a previous post and continues to rise. This post is about a very fine brand new example, the New Heng Shan Cinema. This movie theater never really got much attention, as the original building was a concrete stack probably from the 1950’s or 60’s (see picture right). As far as I know, there was no cinema there ealier as this part of the French Concession was pretty much the country side, and then an industrial area. The cinema was remodeled or rebuilt in 2010, giving a new fako monument to this part of Shanghai.

hengshancinema02

There is a clear inspiration from Art Deco theaters as seen in the USA or in Australia for this one. The building is also inspired by the Grand Theater on People Square (designed by Laszlo Hudec), the Majestic theater as well as the now destroyed Roxy and Metropol theaters on Nanjing Xi Lu.

The very geometrical shape with long line and curve really matches the period’s style with a modern twist. Even the hallway has art deco proportions and feeling, although there is very little decoration there. The side also uses a very geometrical shape and curves to guide the eye and visitors to the main building. It is particularly impressive at night when lighten. New technology in lighting has been perfectly used to create a combination of historical and modern feeling. Old art deco cinemas in Shanghai were very crafted pieces of architecture, including exquisite decorations in the inside, doors and hallways that are not always reproduced in today’s buildings including this one. Still the architecture of this one building transports us to a trip to Old Shanghai, while keeping touch with modernity.

Although fako buildings are not always great, New Hengshan cinema is a success, one great addition to this historic area. It is located 838 Hengshan lu, near Xu Jia Hui.

Looking at the other side

Treaty ports following the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing and 1865 Treaty of Tianjin where mostly located on China Mainland, but some also opened in Taiwan. Our recent trip to the Island was an excellent opportunity to visit them. Between the concrete buildings and the Republican style pagodas, we found a bit of colonial architecture and even some art deco pieces.

The main treaty port was Danshui near Taipei, where a British Consulate was established. It was opened on a the basis of an old Dutch fort. The architecture is very colonial victorian style (see picture). They are very similar to the early buildings on the Bund that have long gone and some few houses remaining in Shanghai. The other treaty Port in North Taiwan was Keelung. The South of the Island also had a treaty port in Anping. The main trade house was Tait & Co. There merchant house has now been turned in a museum.

As Japan took over Taiwan after the treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895, most colonial buildings were built by the Japanese including the presidential palace and other buildings from the same period. Similar buildings were erected in Tainan including the government palace. The same treaty also permitted manufacturing in the foreign concessions in China, that was one of the creation point of foreign manufacturing in Shanghai. The Japanese authorities also built the famous Alishan mountain railways. Although only the top section is open at the moment, the key to wonderful view of the sunrise from the Mountain top (above picture). Sleeping in the old part of the Alishan House hotel, that is an old wood building from the early 1900’s is all part of the atmosphere.

As most of the Island was rebuilt after 1949, we saw only 2 art Deco buildings both in Tainan. The main one was the Tainan Fire Station that is classical art deco round windows. It is highly recognizable with its tower, similar to some of the fire stations in Shanghai with a very different style. The other building was the Tainan police station.

The main attraction of Taipei is the orientalist style or republican style as it sometimes called… this will be the topic of a further post.

Shanghai Shanghai

Watching today’s Chinese TV is not always very rewarding as content is often of various quality. Shanghai’s main commercial TV station Dragon TV is well known for its many talk shows, TV series as well as the current hit “China Talent” or 中国达人秀 . The channel recently started broadcasting a new TV series called “Shanghai Shanghai” or 上海上海. Taking place in old Shanghai, it naturally attracted my interest as well as helping my language skills.

The show tells the story of imaginary entrepreneur and businessman Liu Gong Zhen, using it to show various episodes of Shanghai history. It integrates historical elements and city symbols such as the cabarets and casino competitions into the story. One of the main point is the famous entertainment center and cabaret Great World or 大世界 on the corner of Yanan Lu and Xizhang lu that recently been renovated. It also includes historical facts of the period as well political turmoil of the time. The production spent a lot of time, money and energy to make this a flagship of Dragon TV.

The 40 episodes series need 40 million RMB for production and the effort really shows. The decor and costumes are most often right on the spot. Outside scenes were filmed in gardens of old Shanghai villa and the decor of inside scenes was very well studied to give a real feel for the period. Historians have been clearly involved in set and dresses design and some of the dialogs are in played Shanghai dialect adding again to the whole atmosphere.

Most importantly, the show manages to stir away from too much politics, being a great history lesson for many people in a way that is mostly unbiased for China standards. Heroes and villains are not always on the same side and this adds to the credibility of the whole show. It also avoids the current wave of special effects and over-the-top fights. Mostly focusing on people’s emotions and relations, it manages to captivate the audience, while giving a new and much brighter light to the city history. As Shanghai is re-discovering or re-inventing its past, the series creates a new mythology for the city.

Shanghai Shanghai is a great show cleverly captivating people as well as sending a great message to Shanghainese about their city’s past. I hope a DVD version with English subtitles will be made as it could open a foreign career for the program, or at least allow the many foreigners living in Shanghai to watch it. Although attention has been paid to details and most of the story takes place in the former foreign concessions I have yet to see a foreigner on screen. This little point would have been a great point to the show, underlining Shanghai history as an international city.

The rise of fako

Shanghai Art Deco heritage has been rediscovered in the last 10 -15 years. After decades of neglect and many destructions in the great name of progress, old buildings facades have been renovated in the last year. Expo 2010 has not only been the opportunity for destructions (see post ‘Farewell to Shanghai General Hospital‘), it also has seen a number of renovations putting light on some of the architecture jewels (see post “somebody finally got it“). Most posts in this blog are focused on Shanghai past, particularly in the 1920’s and 1930’s. This post is a little deviation from the usual theme, focusing on Shanghai today’s architecture.

Shanghai original skyscraper boom took place in the late 1920’s – 1930’s, with a number of these buildings still remaining today like the Cathay Hotel (today Peace Hotel) on the Bund, Broadway Mansions on the Suzhou Creek and Grosvenor house on Maoming lu. The tallest building erected in that period was Park Hotel designed by Hungarian Architect Laszlo Hudec, 83.8 meters high with 22 stories. Park Hotel is a great art deco example, inspired by the Radiator Building in New York. It was the tallest building in Asia when it was built in 1934 and remained the tallest building in Shanghai until the 1980’s. From that point on, Shanghai new fashion became mostly white tiles looking just like a bathroom and blue (?) windows. Buildings from this period often look like a Frankenstein version of Art Deco, imitating the tiling and geometrical lines of the style but transforming it into something horrible. The next period was about glass and steel from the 1990’s followed by architecture wonders that are now all over LuJiaZui, the end of Nanjing Dong lu and other areas. Besides contemporary architecture of frameless glass bubbles, another style has been recently on the rise in specific parts of the city.

Limitations by law of the height of some building as well as renovation of older structures from the 1980’s as brought back an Art Deco inspiration to the city. As Shanghai Art Deco architecture was rediscovered, new architecture in the old areas was forced to fit in, using what is called fake art deco or fako. This is particularly true on the Bund where Peninsula as well as the brand new administration building next to the old Russo-Chinese bank were designed to match the surrounding style. Peninsula was allowed to dominate the Bund while still keeping an harmony with the neighboring buildings.

The other area is the old French Concession, where small concrete buildings that were real eye sores have been turned into fako buildings somehow matching the surrounding environment. I am not sure I like fako so much as I definitely prefer the original, but at least it is nice to have an harmony within an area. I have also seen a number of house complexes that are just like anyone else, except that they have some kind of art deco-ish decoration on top. I am much less a fan of those, but at least they keep some kind of atmosphere to Shanghai. The newly found Art Deco craze in Shanghai could be the perfect backdrop for an Art Deco festival like the one in Napier, New Zealand… though this is probably still very very far away.

Before Tatler’s and Time Out

Shanghai guides like today’s Urbanatomy already existed in Old Shanghai, such as “all about Shanghai” and “Tael Lights” that I wrote about in older posts. One of the document I recently found is much rarer as it is a magazine about Shanghai night life. Long before websites like SmartShanghai, magazines similar to That’s Shanghai and Time Out were informing the public about events and nightlife in Old Shanghai. Picture left is the August issue of “Shanghai Guide” in English or “上海生活” (Shanghai Sheng Huo or Shanghai Life in Chinese). The magazine was started in 1936, published on the 17th day of the month.

Shanghai Guide was focused on many topics that are still part of today’s magazines. The cover definitely has a Art Deco / Modernist feeling to it, (already) displaying skyscrapers that were supposed to come soon to Shanghai after the incredible height of the brand new Park Hotel. Too bad Shanghai had to wait 90 years for them to be actually built . The artist impression of a modern and wonderful shopping center towered by a sky scrapper is really not much different from the ones in today’s Shanghai.

The life of Chinese stars was also one of the main anchor including quite a few pictures concentrated at the beginning of the magazine. Since this is the August issue, the pictures of this month are Chinese stars in swimsuits lazying around a swimming pool. It’s actually not different from a That’s Shanghai featuring one of the summer’s pool party in town during the hot months. Although taken nearly 70 years ago, the pictures show that fashion then was also not so different from today’s. It showed a little less of skin, but was surely something new and hot for the time, clearly very different from fashion in the 50’s, 60’s or 70’s in China. Shanghai was already the capital of glamour in China, just like it is again.

The magazine also contains a list of the new movies with a summary. No Imax and 3D effects then, but most of these movies are Hollywood productions just released in Shanghai, including “The Maltese Falcon” with Humphrey Bogart later featured in Casablanca. This icon of “film noir” was released in 1941 in the USA, and soon after in Shanghai. Stories and articles are also a large part of the magazine, along with advertising. They display Chinese miraculous drugs curing everything, pharmacies all kind of remedies but also many foreign and Chinese luxury products including Tissot Watches, Wasson electric fans as well as many brands of British and American cigarettes. This ancestor of the current lifestyle magazines looks very much like today’s ones.

Bad news from the sisters

This house is supposed to be protected...

Shanghai history can be a great source of joy, but it can also be depressing. I was quite optimistic earlier this year with my post “Somebody finally got it”. Despite pre-expo destruction of the Shanghai General Hospital I somehow felt that the rise of Old Shanghai as a marketing tool would also help its preservation. I appear to have been just wrong.

First of all, my view that compound developers were now forced to keep some of the old buildings on their ground has proven to be hope only. The house mentioned in the post on Maoming Lu has been kept for a while only standing in the empty field… only to be destroyed a few days ago. This particular plot will be used to build a metro station… at least generating something good for the city besides cash for the developer.

The saddest piece of news is about the house one 130 Route Kaufman (130 Anting lu nowadays). It has now been completely ruined. People occupying it actually moved out a few months after I wrote the “portrait of an old neighbor” and the house remained empty and closed up for a short period of time. I feared the worst and the worst came. Since I live opposite from it I can witness the disaster every day. The house has been reduced to its bare structure and all external decorations have now been hammered down or covered with concrete (see first picture). The main structure will apparently be kept but that’s about it. All windows and doors have been removed to be replaced by new ones which style has nothing to do with the original. I could not get in, but if none of the outside decoration has survived, I am pretty sure that none of the inside will have survived either.

The architects (not sure they deserve such a name though) have basically done to this 1930’s protected (?) Leonard wonder that same that they do to office blocks. They tear done to the bare frame and rebuilt it in the new fashion. I have seen it work wonders on old office buildings but on this old jewel it is nearly criminal. I’m sure the building will be transformed in some brand new and fashionable restaurant or night club, after having the interior covered with plastic, mirrors or any of the cheap artifacts. I don’t know how much the new developer paid for the house, but I guess current market value would place this building at about 100m RMB, withouth considering the massive work done in it. Too bad that a small portion of this money was not used for actual preservation. This is just like the destruction of the interior of the old Paramount night club (see post “Paramount Suicide” for more information). I had heard before that the plates on some of the buildings (see second picture) are an indication of history only. They are surely not a guarantee that those buildings will be protected. There are not many that many private work from Vesseyre & Leyonard remaining in Shanghai and we have just lost one of the least altered.

Fortunately, this house is just one of the sisters. Having explored the surroundings I have found 9 of them.3 are located on Route Kaufmann (128, 130 and 132). The others are located on the parallel route Cohen (today GaoAn Lu). Two of them are on the cross of Route Cohen and Route Frelupt (today corner of Gaolan Lu and Jiang Guo lu).The last three remaining are down Route Cohen. The raw on Route Cohen is not identical but symmetric to the one on Route Kaufmann. Hopefully, they will not all have the same fate of the 130, but I’m not too optimistic about that either.

The story of the Lubeck family… and their house in Shanghai

The posts “portrait of an old neighbor” and “meet the twin sister“, I talked about two old houses in my neighborhood, on what is now Anting Lu. I also mentioned the old address “132 Route Kaufman”… this is how Steven Lubeck found me. We have been exchanging a few emails since and this post is a short story of his family and the house they lived in, 132 Anting Lu… i.e. the bar Cotton’s at the corner of Jiang Guo lu and Anting lu.

Steven Lubeck great grandfather L.A. Lubeck (his gravestone is in the Protestant Cemetery in Macao) came from Sweden to Macao – the Portuguese colony near Hong Kong -in the 1850’s as a seaman, started a stevedoring business, married a Portuguese woman and had two sons, Luiz and Henrique C. In June 1863, a typhoon destroyed the business and killed L. A. Lubeck and his wife. The Portuguese authorities took charge of the surviving boys aged 5 and 3 and they were raised by foster parents. The younger boy, Henrique (Steven’s grandfather) first became a merchant seaman, then decided on a business career and moved to Shanghai. His son (Steven’s father) Carlos Borromeo Lubeck was born in Shanghai in August 1892 and part of a large family – Henrique married again after his first wife died and had several more children.

The Lubeck house in the 1930's — The Lubeck house in the 1930’s

Carlos was educated in the Marist brothers schools at Jeanne d’Arc on Rue Paul Doumer (todays Dong Hu Lu) and St. Francis Xavier for the higher levels. Carlos was married first to Lucy Zi, they had two adopted daughters, Bernadette (or Berna) and Bertha who became a Catholic nun in the U.S. Carlos Lubeck then married Steven’s mother Anna Yang in 1931 when she was not quite 18 and he was 39. They had a long and happy marriage with 8 children born in Shanghai (one boy died of pneumonia at age 1), then a last child born in the U.S. Carlos Lubeck died at age 89 in 1981 and Anna Yang died at age 90 in 2003.

Carlos Lubeck was employed all his working life by the French Electric Utility and Transportation Company where he became a high-level executive. He is mentioned as secretary in the 1930’s role of employment of the company (source: Les Français de Shanghai).

Steven’s parents left the house with a power of attorney for his mother’s brother and a business friend. Over the following years, the became a public library, then converted into 6 housing apartments including one in the garage and one in the attic on the third floor (his mother saw this transformation on a visit in 1982), then many years later (probably about 2000) the house was an “international style” restaurant. A few years after that (about 2003), a private family lived in. 1st of January 2005, this house became the bar Cotton’s.

The house was designed by “Leonard, Vesseyre & Kruz”, the famous French architecture firm that designed many villas and art deco buildings in the French Concession. They were part of the work commissioned by the real estate developement firm FONCIM, that included a series of houses with a similar style in this area of Route Cohen (GaoAn Lu), Route Frelupt (Jiang Guo Lu) and Route Kaufman (AnTing Lu). The style is called “Neo-Normand”, ressembling houses from the Normandy region in France. These houses were used to accomodate top managers of the French firms as well as Chinese government officials. When these houses were constructed time, this part of the French Concession was still the countryside (!), or at least Shanghai suburb. It is now the center of modern Shanghai.

For more information about Leonard, Vesseyere & Kruz and its work, see post “Shanghai’s Art Deco Master” and “The return of the Dauphine“.

4 years of old Shanghai blogging

Shanghailander.net has just turned 4 years old, as the original “opening post” was posted in late July 2006. Creating the original “Shanghai Old & New” with only me as a reader and turning it to “Shanghailander.net” with about 800 subscribers has really been a work of passion. It has taken me and (hopefully) the readership in a journey through Shanghai’s past, present and sometimes future. It has been a challenging experience and a truly enjoyable one as well.

The media and blog scene focusing on Shanghai is plentiful these days. Thanks to the emergence of China economic powerhouse and of the Shanghai World Expo 2010 an important part of the world’s attention has been focused on thecity… including Shanghailander.net. This has also translated in several newspaper articles and even some TV shows (see post Shanghailander on French TV). There is even a possibility for Shanghailander to appear on Chinese TV, though the project seems to be stalled at the moment. Another spin-off is my involvement in Shanghai Sideways, designing the tours that are enjoyed by many tourists and old residents alike. The name of “Shanghai old and new” is not used for this blog anymore, but it is under discussion to be used again for a book project that I will keep you posted about.

The most important change in these 4 years is surely the way that Old Shanghai is seen by Shanghainese. When I arrived in Shanghai more than 6 years ago, nobody apart from a few crazy foreigners seemed to be interested in Shanghai’s past. Since then Xin Tian Di and Tian Zi Fang have changed the view of Shanghainese people on their old buildings and showed that old could also be cool. Vintage is coming back in force and the images of Old Shanghai have started to been used again for marketing as the whole city rediscovers its own history and former grandeur. One the clear signs is the development of “modern”and “high class” rebuilt Shi Ku Men, as well as numerous movies focused on Shanghai history. Restaurants and cafes using a touch of nostalgia have also sprung out in the meantime. As more old buildings get renovated, more history will be exposed and more people will be interested. This will surely make the few remaining ones out of most people’s financial reach (they already are), but will contribute to make Shanghai a more international place with its own (very international) history. After this summer break, writing schedule should resume to (about) weekly as before. Enjoy reading this blog.