Remnants of old Shanghai industrial sites

Author: Xue Shunsheng et al.
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-03-01
Features: With the rise of modern industry in Shanghai, various industrial buildings also emerged. Early industrial buildings in Shanghai were primarily single-story brick-and-wood structures, adopting China's traditional timber frame construction. Later, large-span industrial buildings with brick piers supporting brick-and-wood mixed structures appeared. With the introduction of Western architectural techniques, new structures and technologies gradually emerged in the 1860s, significantly transforming the appearance of Shanghai's modern industrial buildings. In 1863, metal structures were applied to the carbonization chamber of Shanghai's gasworks, making it the first iron-structured building in Shanghai. As for the application of concrete and reinforced concrete in modern industrial buildings, it came slightly later than steel structures. The first example was the Shanghai Waterworks built in the ninth year of the Guangxu reign (1883), which, along with the Shanghai Jiahua Textile Mill built in the third year of the Xuantong reign (1911), both adopted reinforced concrete structures with sawtooth roofs for single-story factories. Subsequently, new structural forms such as concrete frames, semi-gantry structures, arched roof trusses, and double-hinged gantries and arches appeared in Shanghai as single-story factories. Shanghai is an important industrial base in China, with a wide variety of factories and diverse architectural styles. Even for factories of the same type, their architectural designs often differ greatly. This book can only select a few representative factories for a brief introduction to give a glimpse of the basic characteristics of Shanghai's industrial architecture.