Looking back at the buildings along the Suzhou Creek

Author: Xue Shunsheng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-12-01
Features: Famous cities around the world are often crisscrossed by one (or two) renowned rivers. For example, the Seine River in Paris, the Thames River in London, and the Saint Lawrence River in Montreal. These rivers have nurtured the cities, becoming their mother rivers and adding endless scenic beauty. People in Shanghai can proudly say: We have two, the Huangpu River and the Suzhou Creek. They run through the city from east to west and north to south. Whether from the perspective of urban landscape or economic development and real estate development, these two rivers (especially the Suzhou Creek) provide highly valuable waterfront scenery for development.
The Suzhou Creek was originally known as the Song River and also as the Wusong River. In the urban area of Shanghai, after being dredged in 1916, it became commonly referred to as the Suzhou Creek. Today, the Wusong River is generally called the Suzhou Creek. Originally, the Suzhou Creek was the main river for floodwaters to flow into the sea. It originates from the Taihu Lake, flows to Suzhou, crosses the Grand Canal in Jiangnan, and merges into the Huangpu River near the Waibaidu Bridge. It is 125 kilometers long, with an average width of about 50 meters and a depth of around 2 meters at low tide. The lower reaches of the river are winding. During the Tang Dynasty, the river was as wide as 10 kilometers, but later, due to sediment deposition from tidal inflow, the channel gradually silted up and narrowed. By the Song Dynasty, its width had shrunk to 4.5 kilometers, and then further to 0.5 kilometers. In the Ming Dynasty, to address floodwater drainage from the upper reaches, water from Taihu Lake was into the Liu River to the north and the Huangpu River to the south. Since then, the Suzhou Creek has significantly reduced in water volume, with even more sediment accumulation, eventually becoming a tributary of the Huangpu River.
The Suzhou Creek was the main transport route for agricultural products and industrial raw materials from the Taihu Basin to Shanghai, as well as a crucial channel for shipping Shanghai’s industrial goods to various regions in the Taihu Basin. It is an important river in Shanghai. Walking along the Suzhou Creek is like stepping on the historical tracks of the old city, clearly revealing the evolution of Shanghai as a city. Starting from the Waibaidu Bridge and heading westward to the Caoyang Road Bridge, the 13.3-kilometer inner loop section of the Suzhou Creek is lined with industrial buildings, warehouses, and residential buildings, serving as a witness to Shanghai’s modern history. There are 29 buildings on both banks listed in the municipal historical building protection list, plus 14 outstanding modern buildings in the "Waibaidu Source" area on the Suzhou Creek side, totaling 43, accounting for one-tenth of the city’s outstanding modern protected buildings. These outstanding buildings can rival the scenic architecture along the Seine River in France.