Old Shanghai Garden Houses (Series of Old Shanghai Architecture)

Author: Xue Shunsheng, Lou Chenghao (editors)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-01-01
Features: In the process of Shanghai's modernization, residential buildings have sprouted like mushrooms, undergoing tremendous changes, with traditional housing gradually being replaced by new types. In the 1930s and 1940s, new residential buildings were widespread in 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 residences in Shanghai. Chinese feudal rulers, compradors, and bureaucratic capitalists also followed suit. Western-style detached high-end residences were generally large in size, emphasizing courtyard greening. By the early 20th century, they reached their peak, with more elaborate architectural decorations. Most of these buildings had lawns, fountains, greenhouses, rockeries, pavilions, and garages, and some even had swimming pools, tennis courts, and billiard rooms for sports. These buildings were all single-detached residential units, located in the favorable geographical locations within the concessions, where people habitually referred to these garden-style residences as witnesses to the rise and fall, prosperity and decline of the dazzling world of "Shanghai's Bund."