Old Shanghai Garden House

Author: Xue Shunsheng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-06-01
Features: In the process of Shanghai's modernization, residential buildings have sprung up like bamboo shoots, undergoing tremendous changes. Traditional residential buildings have gradually been replaced by new types. In the 1930s and 1940s, new residential buildings were scattered throughout the city, especially Western-style detached garden houses, covering a total area of 1.6 million square meters and nearly 6,000 such residential buildings, which have become "a microcosm of the era" and "an annal of history." Shanghai has always been the economic and cultural center of the country, and on this grand stage, a large number of foreign colonizers and gold seekers actively participated. To meet their own needs, they built Western-style detached high-end residential buildings in Shanghai. The feudal rulers, compradors, and bureaucratic capitalists in China also followed suit. Western-style detached high-end residential buildings were generally large in size, emphasizing courtyard greening. By the early 20th century, they reached their peak, with more elaborate decorations. Most of them had lawns, fountains, greenhouses, rockeries, pavilions, and garages, and some even had swimming pools, tennis courts, and billiard rooms for sports facilities. These buildings were all single-detached residential units located in the special geographical locations within the concessions with good environments. People are accustomed to referring to these garden-style residential buildings as witnesses to the rise and fall, prosperity and decline of the dazzling world of "Shanghai's ten miles of splendor."