shikumen

Hide And Seek: Looking for Laoximen’s “Stone Gate Houses”

March 17, 2023 by Milena Rams

When I walked out of the Laoximen metro station, in the heart of Shanghai, the noise of cars, bicycles, and walking people drowned out my thoughts. A place where office buildings reach the sky and people in suits are countless. This hustle and bustle remind us of reality; time runs faster and days escape through our fingers….

At first glance, historic Chinese buildings with stone entrances called shikumen (石库门), caught my attention, and just above them huge apartments and office buildings. This beautiful and very peculiar part of the city which in the near future will be demolished and replaced by a mass of new skyscrapers.

In Laoximen, traditional Shanghai shikumen are vanishing as the area is cleared for redevelopment

In the 1860s traditional buildings, shikumen (石库门) translated as “stone warehouse gates”, began to show up on the map of Shanghai. As a city that attracts tourists with its diversity, the beginnings of cultural influences from the West can already be seen in the architecture. As the shikumen combines elements of European and Chinese culture, the architecture of Shanghai combines much more than Chinese culture. Wooden doors, stone doors steps, and archways characterize it.

Laoximen combines two different types of development, low traditional buildings, and tall skyscrapers creating a disproportion that makes this district unique In the video “拆（demolish）” made by videographer Joe Nafis, it’s easier to see the differences in the development of the area.

As they were a very popular style in whose canon as many as 9,000 shikumen were built, which converts to 60% of the total housing buildings in Shanghai. In Shanghai, housing reforms were implemented in the 1990s, which contributed to Chinese families moving to newly built mass housing estates for the working class. As much as three-thirds of the city’s Shikumen housing has since been demolished in favor of commercial redevelopment. From year to year, the area where “stone warehouse gates” are located is diminishing being taken off the maps of Shanghai. Walking among the old buildings, I noticed that not many, but a few family businesses still survived. A car repair store and a convenience store gave me the impression that it has probably been a business for generations in the same place. And this is true, as many of these shikumen buildings weren’t just residential, but also used for business.

The Shanghai community used the residential buildings and began to run their own stores, restaurants, and schools even the Chinese Communist Party at that time released the first two conferences, on Shude Li and in the French Concession respectively.

New modern and unconventional buildings, opportunities for development, and the uniqueness of Shanghainese architecture make Shanghai a modern city of distinction. There a piece of land is very expensive so right that old shikumen buildings are destroyed and replaced with new, taller buildings to be taken over by global corporations or housing developments.

拆 (demolish) from Joe Nafis on Vimeo.

Shikumen: Laoximen and its More Popular Neighbor Xintiandi

March 16, 2023 by Michelle Hu

Xintiandi, a shopping district with luxury brands and western restaurants

After walking for nearly an hour scouring through the empty streets of Laoximen, my classmates and I reached a large shopping district with clean tiled streets and vigilant police officers on patrol. The difference between the desolate, neglected area that we had left behind and our current surroundings was startling. Instead of the worn, yellowing walls of abandoned buildings, the structures here boasted sturdy brick and stone facades with ornate pillars that emitted a sense of timeless elegance. Lining the pathways were vintage western-style street lamps and trees wrapped with rows of decorative lights.

It was odd to see such polar atmospheres just a few blocks away from each other, the past and the present on one page. I was curious about Laoximen, one of Shanghai’s oldest communities, and why it was vastly different from the rest of the metropolis. So, I did some further research on this mysterious neighborhood. In english, Laoximen literally means “Old West Gate”, a fitting name for the western gate of what used to be a the walled city of Shanghai, “上海老城厢” or “Old City”. After the Opium War in 1842, parts of Shanghai were overtaken by British and French concessions. As foreigners settled in and urbanized northern and western Shanghai, the Old City remained in China’s control and as a result became the core of Chinese culture in Shanghai. However, despite not physically being part of the foreign concessions, you are still able to see influences of western culture in the area of what was originally Old City.

In Laoximen, there are many shikumen buildings. Shikumen (石库门) refers to a residential architecture original to the city of Shanghai. It combines elements of both Chinese and Western architecture with influences from Chinese hutongs and French Art Deco. The Shikumen were characterized by their decorative stone gates with intricate engravings and three-walled courtyards. Not only did they closely resemble Western townhouses but they were also great for dense communities as they were relatively small.

As Shanghai is rapidly urbanizing and looking to replace outdated buildings from its past with a new modern look, preservation of local heritage and culture becomes an increasingly important topic. The balance between development and preservation should be taken into consideration whenever old historic sites like Laoximen are being torn down and built anew.

Even though most of the residential Shikumen have been torn down for redevelopment, there are still traces of its unique architecture in Xintiandi (新天地). I did some further research on Xintiandi and discovered that Xintiandi is not only the name of the area but is also an “urban revitalization brand”. According to their website, they pride in combining modern culture with Chinese heritage to create up-scale commercial and entertainment districts for both tourists and residents to explore. Their first development was in Shanghai, where they renovated historic Shikumen structures as a way to preserve historical architecture while providing consumers with modern facilities and services. For the two blocks of Xintiandi, it was an estimated 1.4 billion RMB or 228 million USD. While it is important to preserve local heritage, this “trendy” urban revitilization plan requires a lot of resources when dealing with the renovation of historic buildings. It will be interesting to see how Laoximen plans to achieve this harmony of cultural heritage and modern development. Will Laoximen’s revitalization efforts successfully balance the preservation of the area’s historical character with the introduction of new amenities and facilities?

However, at the moment, the buildings that housed generations of families are now boarded up and abandoned, patiently waiting for the stories of those who have once lived there to be forgotten. Despite knowing the importance of urban renewal, it was still a bit sad to walk by, knowing that after a few years the area would be replaced by high-rise apartments and shopping centers.

Abandoned residential properties in Laoximen

Yongtai Neighborhood on Yongkang Road: A Lost Fairyland of Shanghai Lane Life?

May 9, 2022 by Coco Hao

A shady lane in the Yongtai neighborhood in Shanghai’s Xuhui District. In the distance, recently built towers loom.

Opposite my old high school on Shanghai’s Yongkang Road stands the Yongtai neighborhood. I walked past it every morning when I was in high school, but it was not until I entered college and had more leisure time that I went in and explored.

Unlike many of the recently built neighborhoods in Shanghai, whose residential buildings have dozens of floors and are well-equipped with parking lots and grocery stores, old areas, like Yongtai, lack such amenities.

The day I visited was a peaceful and quiet afternoon; bicycles and cars were dispersed along lane walls instead of in garages, drying laundry hung right above the alleys, and residents sat and chatted in the afternoon sunshine. Everyone seemed to enjoy the environment and the slow living pace. Despite the lack of modern amenities, I would feel honored if I could live in such a neighborhood with fairy-tale serenity.

Thinking about the possibility of living in such a place after graduation, I researched similar old neighborhoods online, thinking that perhaps I could move into one after I save enough money. Disappointingly, such areas are increasingly hard to come by, as the number of old neighborhoods in Shanghai shrank by around 60 percent from 2000 to 2008. By now, in 2022, even more of these urban fairylands have been replaced by modern high-rises.

Anthropologist Chuek Yet Ho, who has studied urban demolition and development in China, writes of a manager of a demolition and relocation company, summarizing their view of the overall situation and presenting it as fairly typical of the mainstream popular view:

A combination of soaring property prices, experiences of previous demolition malpractices, and the ruling Communist Party of China’s resolve to create a ‘harmonious society’ is attributed to more stringent control over how demolition work should be conducted. Chaiqianhu (evictees) are well-aware of the country’s economic transformation from the principle of socialist distribution based on part entitlement and part discretion, to the new game of capitalist accumulation based on part market mechanism and part statist control.

And all that aside, a quick glance at one of these old neighborhoods might lead some to agree that they should be demolished: wires often hang haphazardly from the walls, which themselves may be in clear need of repair, and old pipes and plumbing are as visible as the tangled wires. And yet, as Ho argues, the main reason for demolition in cities, including Shanghai, is not the old age of houses, which may be the sum of generations of people and well worth preserving, but urban development undertaken to accommodate the massive influx of migrants into cities from all around China. Low-rise buildings, it seems, can no longer satisfy the increasing population and demand for living spaces.

Hence, buildings of dozens of stories oppressively loom over patches of remaining graceful old buildings, and the peaceful lives of the residents and their precious memory living there. Although Shanghai pays much attention to the preservation of historical buildings as famous places, including the site of the first CPC conference, turning them into well-preserved and propagandized tourist attractions, people seldom care about the future of old neighborhoods except the residents themselves, who may lose their sense of community because demolition involves moving into suburb neighborhoods and separation from familiar friends. Independent scholar Jeff Hays, in an interview with a Shanghainese resident who has undergone demolition, quotes a Mr Jin as saying, “There’s nothing wrong with improving people’s lives, but we shouldn’t throw our heritage away like a pair of old shoes.”

This reminds me of a famous but regretful example of demolition in China I learned about in a required freshman course at NYU Shanghai, Global Perspectives on Society. Lincoln Lane, an old Shanghai alley named after American President Lincoln, was demolished in 2002. The residents there spared no effort to advertise its charm, even writign a letter to the mayor of Springfield, Illinois and seeking the help of graduate students from Tongji University in an effort to save their beloved neighborhood. The charming and upscale lane still experienced demolition in 2002, and many people attribute this to the ignorance and irresponsibility of the city’s building preservation department. Today, searching on Baidu, China’s biggest search engine, I cannot even find the exact site of Lincoln Lane. Time, and human actions, threaten to erase all the memories and records of it.

As I contemplate my own past, and think about the peaceful lanes of the Yongtai neighborhood — a place I never got to know in high school, and have only now begun to acquaint myself with — I realize that we must all work to save memories of our collective past, even as urban renewal surges ahead and remakes our cities.

Ordinary People and Urban Renewal: Farewell to the Familiar

May 7, 2022 by Tim Liu

The Shanghai Metro is currently the biggest metro system in the world by route length. Although many praise it for its convenience, Metro lines are often overcrowded, especially during rush hours. One local social media influencer grew so frustrated with Metro Line 16 that he named it gangdunizi (Shanghainese dialect for “stupid son”) in a video, criticizing the line’s short trains and crowded carriages.

The video went viral online, and passengers complained in comments about their bad experiences taking Line 16 to commute between Nanhui New City, a place that was primarily an outlying town with farms and factories twenty years ago, but that is now rapidly developing after merging into Pudong New District and being regarded by Shanghai’s urban planners as one of the five “new cities,” as Qian Cao explains in a 2021 Shanghai Daily article on the region’s “strategic master plan,” with a surge of residents in dense commodity living units, and Longyang Road Transit in Pudong.

Nonetheless, the Metro remains popular, as it is the most affordable transportation for the wide public, and for tourists and people like me, who love to make the most out of living in this vast and diverse city, cheap Metro tickets allow me to explore different places in the megacity, without worrying about the distance. I often take the metro and travel to different parts of Shanghai on weekends.

Traveling on the metro from Lujiazui, the financial center of Shanghai, heading west across Huangpu River into central Puxi, the older part of the city, I got off at Madang Road station of Line 9 and encountered an old neighborhood on Shunchang Road surrounded by fascinating tower buildings and plazas. This neighborhood is close to Xintiandi, a prosperous shopping district that consists of renovated and rebuilt shikumen style housing. One of the most luxurious neighborhoods in Shanghai, Cuihutiandi, where an apartment sells for more than 20 million, borders Xintiandi.

The neighborhood’s unique location and old houses drew me further in as I walked. This place reflects two dynamic aspects of Shanghai, its rich history and rapid development, and I see signs of this all around me. A grandma holds her granddaughter’s hand, waiting to cross the street with the green light. Behind them on the wall, a notice with a blue background and bright yellow words reads: “demolition area, mind your safety.”

Behind the wall, an excavator raises its scoop as if announcing the fate of the old houses nearby. As the excavator tears down houses, across the street, construction workers rush through the gate of a construction site where a skyscraper is taking shape. Rendering of the area around the skyscraper portrays the scene in which tall buildings with glass exteriors stand by each other, cars running on the widened road. The sharp contrast between the two sides of the street demonstrates the nature of urban renewal in Shanghai. Commercial centers replace old neighborhoods in central places. Luxurious neighborhoods develop around the commercial centers.

Everything in the neighborhood reveals its long history, showing a typical image of old neighborhoods. The pavement is sticky and slippery. A broken pipeline leaks water from the second floor, dampening the moss on the pavement which reflects blacks and greens. An old couple, chatting in Shanghainese and wearing thick overcoats, tottered along, using their umbrellas as walking sticks. They sometimes point to the old houses, getting excited and raising their voice as if they’ve recalled memories in these houses.

A man slowly rides a bike into the one-way street, struggling to keep balance with the handlebar trembling as he dodges the old couple and other pedestrians in the narrow street. Older people come out into the street to wander after several rainy days. They step into the shops, coming to acquaintances and starting conversations.

There are many shops on the street where residents can chat, from the fruit shop that sells watermelon produced in the “new city” of Nanhui to China Mobile, opening their doors below the wet canopy. The smell of poor-quality shampoo floats in the air outside a barbershop. Neon lights of the Old Shanghai antique shop shine from the shop window. Inside, old furniture, lights, fans, and clocks— witnesses to the history of change in Shanghai—are on display.

The neighborhood is old, so things interact in a complicated way. Utility poles stand straight on the roadside next to the trees, extending electric wires covered with black rubber sleeves that twist around the ancient houses and in front of the windows. A pink shirt hanging on the laundry poles that extend outside the window dances to the rhythm of the wind. Air conditioners’ condenser units cling to the exteriors of dwellings right below the windows, so close to the pipelines as if they’ve taken the others’ space.

But a sense of harmony arises from the complicated interactions. People in the neighborhood are accustomed to the electric wires and pipelines. No one would question, “why should the utility pole stand outside of my window, blocking my view?” People and things have spent so much time together and experienced so much together. They are familiar with the environment, living in perfect harmony. There are things in the neighborhood that conflict with the harmony of everyday life. Some furniture rests near a utility pole, with a rusty tricycle parked near it. Fridges, wooden bookshelves, a yellow suitcase, and a washing machine here all belong to a polanwang (people who collect abandoned stuff from households and sell them) who must have a thriving business as the demolition approaches.

A red banner with bright yellow words hanging on two trees reads, “renovation of the old district, better move to new homes so local administration and residents can achieve harmony and prosperity.” Another banner over the neighborhood entrance reads, “the earlier you sign, the more benefits you’ll receive, policies always stay the same,” advocating residents to sign demolition agreements.

I took out my phone to take photos of the old houses and the banners when a friendly resident came up to me, pointing to a water tower and introducing it as the longest-serving water tower in the neighborhood with a history of more than one hundred years, encouraging me to take more pictures before the demolition. His feeble voice was full of reminiscence and pity, seeing the place where he lived his entire life soon to be demolished.

The propaganda for demolition, the move-out of residents, the discarded furniture on the street, do not belong to the harmonious scene of this neighborhood but instead sentenced the harmony here death penalty. To change the daily lives of thousands, all it takes is a demolition agreement printed on several pieces of paper. Once enough signatures are collected, the ancient houses, the neighborhood shops, and the dancing shirt on the laundry pole will be gone forever. Real estate agents dressed in black suits with crooked ties stand in front of the neighborhood entrance engraved with “1925”, the year this neighborhood was constructed, with a whiteboard next to them listing available apartments.

There will be places for residents to start a new life, though the whole process is hard for many of them. A woman offers real estate tips to her neighbor, speaking in the Shanghainese dialect, “you need to decide the location first, whether you want to move to Pudong district or Jiading district, or anywhere else.”

The real estate advertisements on the wall describe the location of the apartments by district and distance to the closest metro station. Some apartment information reads, “Fengxian district, 10 kilometers from Xinchang station of Line 16”, “Kunshan city, 800 meters from Huaqiao station of Line 11”, “Pudong district, 1 kilometer from Wild Animal Park station of Line 16”. All metro stations on the advertisement are more than 30 kilometers away from this neighborhood.

The woman offering tips was right in making general decisions about location first. But among the apartments that residents can buy with their demolition compensation, the location is not an easy choice.

Imagine if you were asked to move to places an hour and a half metro ride from where you live right now. How quickly could you decide where you wanted to live upon demolition? And, how many difficulties and challenges do you expect to face leaving your familiar and harmonious neighborhood and adapting to a new life in a new place? Those are common struggles for older residents facing demolition who sacrificed their familiar way of living for development in the city.

The slogan of Expo 2010 in Shanghai was “Better City, Better Life.” If directly translated from Chinese, the slogan should be “Cities make life better.” Urbanization in Shanghai maintained the modernity and prosperity of the city, impressing all tourists with the forest of buildings in the day and spectacular views on The Bund at night. But we can also remember that in a neighborhood in central Shanghai, residents have to move to commodity housing units in suburban areas, and many hundred-year-old houses are demolished.

A former resident of Laoximen, another demolished neighborhood in central Shanghai, said in an interview before demolition, “This neighborhood is really convenient for the kids to go to school, for us to buy groceries and see a doctor. We have to adjust after we move.” Demolition does not simply mean tearing off houses and building new ones. Instead, it includes closing cheap grocery shops in the neighborhood, the farewell of the antiques in thrift shops that witnessed history, and the relocation of residents who will never afford to live in the same place.

Urbanization and city renewal should not simply enable rich people to purchase luxurious houses in central areas, but care for the need of ordinary residents. Cities do not make life better for those who now have to take Line 16 to travel from dense living areas in Nanhui New City to where they were born and raised and have lived for decades. Care for the older people during the demolition and relocation process and reconciliation between urbanization and vulnerable people in society requires further consideration. Bearing the affection and lives of ordinary citizens in mind during grand schemes of city renewal and urbanization, the society can and will make the development of the city benefiting everyone.