Lilongs, Shanghai’s
neighbourhoods with unique architecture that were built in the 19th century,
were once a victim of China’s
war on its own past during the Cultural Revolution. With enormous commercial
pressure on real estate, the city’s finding ways, some controversial, to
restore the few remaining heritage sites.Shikumen architecture combines Western and Chinese styles to create a
unique aesthetic that cannot be found anywhere else in China. But few
neighbourhoods remain today.
Preserved for posterity:
A reconstructed lilong
In downtown Shanghai, the old and the new can be found in
proximity that can be painfully ironic. Just one block away from Nanjing Road, the
city’s ultra-modern, high-end designer shopping district lie century-old quaint
neighbourhoods, known as lilongs. In their mazy networks of lanes and
alleyways of traditional shikumen (stone-gate) houses that best
represent old Shanghai, you will still find open
drains, road-side vegetable sellers and outdoor clotheslines, the last vestiges
of a quickly vanishing past in China’s
most modern city.
Historically significant
These neighbourhoods were built
in the late 19th century to house locals and migrant workers who worked for the
big European trading companies in Shanghai.
Shikumen architecture combines Western and Chinese styles to create a
unique aesthetic that cannot be found anywhere else in China. But few
neighbourhoods remain today. Starting from the Cultural Revolution (1966-76),
when Mao’s China began a war
against its own past, and through the rapid growth and modernisation of Shanghai in the 1990s, lilongs were routinely torn
down and replaced by the flashy skyscrapers and neon lights that define Shanghai today. Most of
the lilongs that are still standing are either forgotten or on their
last legs; but one recent—and highly controversial—restoration project has once
again brought attention to the city’s old neighbourhoods and revived a lagging
preservation movement.
In the late 1990s, by when many
of downtown Shanghai’s
lilongs had been consumed by a wave of development, one very politically
significant site came under threat—a site where the Communist Party held its
first ever meeting way back in 1921. For once, the government did not turn a
deaf ear to protests against the development. A Hong Kong-based developer, the
Shui On Group, came up with a compromise to use the prime real estate: While
the old shikumen houses would all be torn down, the developer agreed to
reuse their tiles and replicate a 19th century lilong in the project
instead of erecting yet another skyscraper in the heart of the city. The only
difference would be that instead of local residents—who were all evicted—this
new neighbourhood would house commercial establishments like Starbucks and
boutique designer stores, to make the hugely expensive project commercially
viable for the developer.
The development, called Xintiandi
(meaning “new heaven and earth”) was finished in 2006. Developer Vincent Lo and
American architect Ben Wood in their design reproduced the form of an old lilong,
with narrow alleyways and shikumen houses, though they changed and
retro-fitted the interior spaces so that they could be usable for a
21st-century commercial establishment. Xintiandi is now one of Shanghai’s most popular
tourist sites, and is also a huge hit with the city’s increasingly affluent
youth.
Among conservationists though,
the project has sparked debate. While in one sense Xintiandi preserves a slice
of old Shanghai in its physicality, some say it only reinforces the commercial,
soulless and kitsch “Starbucks aesthetic” that is increasingly taking over the
city, and goes against the essence of preservation. Eric Wear, an expert on
conservation and an artist who was hired by Xintiandi’s developers to bring a
sense of authenticity to the new shikumen designs, argues that the
project is an important first step in a city where preservation is still an
arcane idea and “there is a low premium on heritage architecture”.
“Xintiandi is extremely important
as a demonstration, as the main issue for preservation in China is how to do things in a way
that is economically sustainable,” Wear says. “This sort of preservation, which
we call adaptive reuse, is one way forward to hold on to things, though it
involves a mix of preservation and rebuilding.”
Despite the criticisms, Xintiandi
has at least succeeded in changing public perceptions about heritage
architecture and reviving the preservation debate. Zheng Shiling, president of
the Architectural Society of Shanghai and professor of architecture at TonjiUniversity,
says when the movement to protect Shanghai’s
past began around 10 years ago, local residents—and the local authorities—would
question why they should care about “things that were backward”.
“Preservation is not easy,” Zheng says. “A lot has been destroyed since 1990.
Even in the late 1970s, when precious things were considered backward, Shanghai lost a lot of
its past. But people are now paying more attention to preserving not just
buildings but culture as well, instead of the old mentality of only focusing on
creating something new.”
Two years ago, the Shanghai government, for
the first time, listed 12 “conservation areas” in the city that would limit new
construction developments in certain neighbourhoods. The protected areas
stretch over 27 sq km in downtown Shanghai.
Besides several lilongShanghai in the second half of the 19th century
after the Chinese defeat in the Opium War, left a legacy of rich architecture,
from art deco buildings to garden villas. neighbourhoods, the areas also include pockets of
old colonial architecture. The Europeans, who settled in
In the city’s French
international settlement, still known as the French Concession, old shikumen
houses and grand art-deco buildings like the Garden Hotel—which was famously
converted into a palace for Chairman Mao in the 1960s—still give a rare glimpse
into the city’s famously opulent past in the swinging 1920s. On the Bund, the
western embankment along the Huangpu river, the British and French built large
banks and ostentatious offices to show-off their prosperity, including the
original Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank building with the well-known regal lion
statues that guard the entrance, and the Peace Hotel, Shanghai’s first ever art-deco
building.
After years of neglect, the
Shanghai Government is now embarking on an ambitious Bund restoration project
to help restore these forgotten buildings to their former glory. The Peace
Hotel is also being renovated by the Government-owned Jinjiang hotel group.
Many point to the success of Xintiandi as fundamentally changing the
government’s perception of preservation, by creating a realisation that when
done right, preservation too can bring in the money.
Elizabeth Lui, a Los
Angeles-based photographer and the author of Open Hearts, Open Doors, a
book about preservation in rural China,
says that while the Xintiandi model should not become the standard for future
projects in China,
it is at least a start. After all, preservation is not only about the
architecture — it is, as Lui says, also about preserving the “intangibles” of
culture, preserving old values and aesthetics, something Xintiandi certainly
does not do.
Selective memory
Lui argues that China poses
unique challenges to preservation, largely because of what she describes as a
“cultural amnesia” created by the Cultural Revolution. “What we are seeing in China today,
and not just in architecture, is a serious gap in cultural memory,” Lui says.
“You had a 40-year period where you convinced your people the past didn’t
matter… so they forgot who they were and where they came from. That is so
tragic, and that is part of what the preservation movement in China is up against.”
Lui says in China today, when the pace of
development and change is breathless, saving anything is a bonus. “The
Xintiandi model is not perfect, but at this moment in history, if you can save
anything, for whatever reason, even if it is filled with a mall, it’s a start,”
says Liu. “The way I look at it, at least, it didn’t get demolished. For now.”
