Shanghai 2009
Friday, 23 October 2009 04:10
Written by Anna Greenspan

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The Town Hall, 650 Qingyuan Huan Lu, was completed in 1933. It now functions as an office building for the Shanghai Sports University. It is a vast, grandiose Chinese-style structure with a colorful tile roof, animal decorations and upturned eaves. It has a red pillar front, arched doorways and -- inside the main entrance -- a ceiling mural with an inlaid floor map of Shanghai. In front of the building is a vast square. Now converted into sports fields, it was built to hold up to 100,000 people – the anticipated crowd at the building's inauguration. On one occasion, 500 couples were wedded in a mass ceremony in the square.

The Shanghai Municipal Museum, 174 Changhai Lu, occupies a building whose exterior has been glossily refurbished. Inside, however are the original magnificent ceiling frescoes. The museum is now part of the Changhai Hospital and the opulent decorations – murals and chandeliers – make for an extremely bizarre contrast with the grim patrons who sit in the hospital waiting room, seemingly oblivious to their surroundings. Next door is one of the city's Art Deco masterpieces, the former China Aviation Association Building, which dramatically marries form and function. The building – whose purpose was to focus on modern aviation research -- is shaped like an airplane, complete with a rooftop dirigible pad.

The Shanghai Municipal Library, 25 Zhengli Lu, is a fortress-like building decorated with rooftop animal heads that has been incorporated into the Tongji Middle School. Designed to hold a collection of up to 500,000 volumes today, the devastated state of the once grand old library stands as a memorial to the vandalistic spirit of the Cultural Revolution.

The Jiangwan Stadium, 245 Songhu Lu, was the largest stadium in the Far East when completed in 1936, with room for 50,000 spectators. Its architectural style fuses Eastern and Western elements. The connected Jiangwan sports center has recently undergone an RMB100 million renovation and now boasts a new swimming pool, gym and other athletic facilities. The reconstructed stadium is part of an immense project headed by the Shui On Group, the Hong Kong based development company responsible for Xintiandi.

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