Historic Colonial Architecture of Shanghai

[TheAlmightyFuzzy]

Thread idea and pics by Skybean over at SSC:

I know when most people think of Shanghai, especially on a skyscraper forum, they think of Pudong and the Pearl Oriental. The above image probably comes to mind. You might think "futuristic" or even "tacky". But the truth is that there is quite a diverse selection of architectural style in Shanghai. Sure, some of the towers might be overdone, but there remain many gems from the past.

Let me bring you to see the other side of Shanghai.

Gutzlaff Signal Tower

North China Daily News & AIA Building

Glen Line Building

Asiatic Petroleum Building

Shanghai Club

Jardine Matheson

Bank of Indo China

Yangtsze Insurance Building

Chartered Bank

Bank of Communications

St. Petersburg Russo Adriatic Bank

China Merchant / Bank of Taiwan

Cathay Hotel (aka Peace Hotel)

Custom House / Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation

Miscellaneous

TBC.

 

[Bogtrotter]

Beautiful, amazing, ghastly and bizarre.

 

[ahrvojic]

Very interesting, thanks!

 

[shumoon]

Shanghai's Bund is an island of art deco and European tradition in a sea of postmodernist exhuberance. It is amazing to see red Chinese flags on these European-style buildings. If we weren't told that this is Shanghai, these photos would lead one to think the Chinese had colonized some European city overnight while we were asleep.

 

[wyliepoon]

Before the communists came to rule in China, the part of Shanghai where all these buildings were built were in the "concessions"- even though that part of the city wasn't considered a European "colony", it was ruled by municipal governments that were run by westerners for mostly westerners. The Chinese tried to build their own city centre in the 1920s and 1930s northeast of the concessions, but they only managed to build a few major buildings, and the plan did not succeed in the end.

Most of the Neoclassical/Art Deco towers built in Shanghai were designed by one architectural firm- Palmer and Turner. The firm still exists, and continues to design buildings all over Asia.

www.p-t-group.com/html/home.php