The Royal Asiatic Society Building: The Museum on Museum Road
I first saw the old building in the summer of 2000, coming out of a lane on Huqiu Lu. It stood there, in all its modernist majesty, still glorious despite half a century of neglect. We asked the residents at the lane entrance just opposite the building about it. One middle-aged man, shirt doffed in the stifling Shanghai ...
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Treaty Port Gulangyu
“For situation and natural attractions, Kulangsu (Gulangyu) is unsurpassed along the coast of China.” -- Philip Wilson Pitcher, 1909 A tiny gem nestled in the embrace of big sister Xiamen ("Amoy" in the local Hokkien dialect) in China’s southern Fujian province, Gulangyu Island's size– just 2km2 – ...
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The Creation of a 1940s Advertisement
By The Little Museum of Foreign Brand Advertising in the R.O.C (MOFBA) // The companies of Old Shanghai left behind their buildings, but what happened to their products? Following Duncan Hewitt’s post on Brunner Mond/ICI, we’re delighted to publish MOFBA's story on the making of a 1940s ad featuring one of ICI's ...
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School Above the Sea: Shanghai Municipal Council Polytechnic Public School
The Shanghai Municipal Council (SMC) Polytechnic, or Gezhi Academy, was founded in 1874, and remarkably, this pioneering institution, with its links to missionaries, reformers, scientists, and revolutionaries, is still going strong. Today, it’s the Shanghai Gezhi High School. In 2005, I was privileged to meet two ...
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Hidden Histories: The Shanghai Shanty
It’s not often that a shanty stops you in your tracks--in a good way!--but this one did. This little house, clinging to a lane wall in the old Chinese city, defies the usual definition of a shanty: that is, a haphazard illegal structure on the edge of a city. You enter via an Art Deco gateway in the heart of ...
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Shanghai’s Little White House
They call it the “Little White House,” and it was one of the finest grand mansions of old Shanghai. Still is. Constructed by a company whose buildings would become icons, this gracious belle époque mansion on Fenyang Lu never housed Presidents, but for nearly half a century after it was built, it was the home of men ...
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Chin Woo Athletic Association Buildings
“Historic Beauty to be Torn Down”, blared the headline. It was August 5, 2011, and it was clear that time was of the essence, so despite the sweltering Shanghai heat, I headed down to 379 Huimin Road, at the corner of Dalian Road, in Yangpu District. There, I discovered an island of architectural beauty in a desert ...
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