László Hudec: Shanghai’s Master Builder
You know Hudec’s buildings: The I.S.S. Building/Normandie (Wukang Apartments), that red brick beauty shaped like a streamlined 1930s cruise ship, where hundreds gather daily, waves beneath the ship, to snap a precious photo. The Park Hotel, the dramatic Art Deco building that was Shanghai’s first ...
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Presents from the Past: Christmas Shopping in Old Shanghai
"Watch the crowds on Nanking Road these days. Happy faces everywhere, and nearly everyone carrying huge bundles wrapped in colored paper. Yes, Christmas is just around the corner…” –China Press, December 1936 Need a little inspiration for your Christmas shopping? Take a look at what was on ...
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The Soong House on Seymour Road: A Pictorial Tour
There are several Soong houses in Shanghai that you can visit, but the modest house on Shaanxi Bei Lu that was the family home for more than a decade is not open to the public. So, for your viewing pleasure, some photos (from our private 2020 visit)! The Soong front door Original tile, front ...
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The Garden Bridge: Misunderstanding, War, and a Century’s Worth of History
Photo: Historic Shanghai collection The 1908 Garden Bridge (Waibaidu Qiao 外白渡桥) is that rarest of Shanghai historic treasures: an original structure that is still being used for the same purpose for which it was built. And it’s got quite a story. Before bridges spanned the river, ferry ...
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Shanghai Umbrellas for the Plum Rains
There are some things in life you can absolutely count on. Death, taxes … and the plum rains. And after a few plum rain seasons, it becomes clear that there’s just no avoiding it. Absolutely no getting around it. So you might as well embrace it—and the best way we know how is with an Old Shanghai ...
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Half of a Lifelong Friendship
By Susan Blumberg-Kason // The world knew him as C.T. Hsia, the man who brought Chinese literature--and Eileen Chang--to the West. But to my dad, Avrom Blumberg, he was his old friend, Jonathan. In 1949, at the age of 21, my dad started graduate school at Yale. He quickly befriended another ...
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Alexandre Léonard: The Man. The Art Deco. The Mystery.
You can't talk about Art Deco in Shanghai without talking about the immensely talented Alexandre Léonard. One of the city's leading French architects during the Art Deco age, Léonard designed villas, apartment houses, and civic buildings that would become landmarks of the former French Concession and ...
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