Shanghai is looking to the future by embracing its architectural heritage

By Ric Stockfis
Translation by Amanda Mao

"Shanghai has always liked showing off,” says Peter Hibbard, president of the Royal Asiatic Society in China. “It is a great city of face.” Indeed, you only have to look to the modern skyline of Pudong for ever-changing proof of this. The Bund boasts dozens of architectural styles preserved for posterity, while shiny Xintiandi makes a convincing – if somewhat sanitised – case for the beauty of traditional shikumen (stone gate) lanes.

But in a city of face, looking nice isn’t enough unless you can make money. Although more than 600 historic buildings have been granted official preservation status, several dozen have simply been torn down. Yet in the last year alone, the launch of three separate projects – an artdeco slaughterhouse reinvented as a creative hub, a pair of neo-classical mansions rebranded as the last word in luxury, and a run-down section of the city’s docks now filling up with cafes and boutiques – suggests that not everyone has given up on combining profits with preservation.

To point out that the buildings that make up ‘1933’ were once three of the world’s grandest abattoirs does them a disservice, for they remain awe-inspiring today. Located in the Hongkou district, to the north of the Bund, the beauty of their British design belies the fact that they were triumphs of function as much as form. The renovation is no accident either. Empty since 2002, the local government used its architectural heritage as a key ingredient in revitalising the area. Yet when 1933 CEO Paul Liu first visited the site, what he saw “resembled a scene from The Terminator – piles of rubble, dripping water and exposed pipes everywhere”. However, repair work was slight, and the buildings’ scars and marks have largely been left intact.

“We want to challenge people who come here to think about aesthetics, architecture, design, and especially respect for the past,” says Liu. Formerly executive director of Three on the Bund, another high-profile historic renovation, he rather regrets that it “developed over time into a luxury destination with no relevance to 99% of shanghai’s population”. at 1933, he and his business partners instead envisage a new creative hub, open to anyone with a curious mind. To that end, 1933 requires that at least 40% of its tenants come from creative industries. Retail spaces in the 32,000-square metre complex tend to be one-of-a-kind and Liu hopes people will leave “not just with a shopping bag, but with an idea in their head”.

More exclusive, but no less extraordinary, are the neoclassical Twin Villas across town at 796 Huaihai Lu. Built in the 1920s and once home to the shanghai Cinema Bureau, the elegant mansions have been painstakingly restored and opened to the public late last year. Here, luxury takes centre-stage, with flagship stores for alfred Dunhill and Vacheron Constantin, and an outlet for Hong Kong’s private members club KEE.

The Dunhill Home store is a wonder in itself, a Boy’s Own safari adventure made real: vintage leather travel trunks piled two-storeys high; a bespoke tailor; and even a desk fashioned from a 1944 aircraft wing. Dunhill has said it wants to create something unique with the Home, and the same could readily be said of the entire development. Given the grandeur of the buildings and their location, tucked back from one of the city’s premier retail streets, it’s no surprise prices are high. Yet, for all the differences between here and 1933, there’s a shared sense both of respect for the past and for the value of innovation; the tenants – including contemporary gallery shanghaRT – have each utilised the space magnificently. “What they’ve done is astounding,” says Hibbard. “Putting up the money for the restoration and having the integrity to do it properly – it’s genius.”

In the case of the Cool Docks – on the site of the south Bund’s old shipping refrigeration warehouses – it’s a whole area that has been transformed. Hailed, like so many before it, as the next Xintiandi; a trickle of retail boutiques and cafés has already moved into new low-rises, alongside still-standing shikumen houses.

Fruit boxes are piled up against walls and, for now at least, the waterfront area remains very much lived in.

Of course, the ‘new Xintiandi’ tag doesn’t guarantee success. The Pier One complex, opened in 2006 on the site of an old brewery beside suzhou Creek, has already closed its doors. But Michelin-starred chef stefan stiller, who worked on that development, thinks the area around the Cool Docks – home to his new, eponymous restaurant and cooking school – is much more interesting. “People like coming somewhere new, but they also want to see something of the old neighbourhoods.” To better raise appreciation for shanghai’s rich architectural heritage, Hibbard says, “Developers need to let the history live; they must let it speak for itself.” in very different ways, these three new developments may yet prove him right.