Henderson Cifi Tiandi @ Shanghai, China

HENDERSON CIFI TIANDI

The street of 1,000 red jars

(Source: Ateliers Jean Nouvel. Photo ©10 Studio. 恒基-旭辉新天地/The Roof)

Huangpu District is the birthplace of Shanghai’s local culture, industry and the Communist Party of China. Its rich cultures include old houses in alleyways such as the Yuyuan Garden; modern industry such as Jiangnan Shipyard; diversified architecture such as the historic buildings on the Bund; and the classic Shikumen buildings as well as historical sites related with the history of the country’s communist party. Shanghai’s transformation into a metropolis takes roots here. Today’s Huangpu District is sometimes referred to as “New

Huangpu”, the result of the merger of three long-standing districts of Shanghai: Nanshi, Huangpu and Luwan. Each of these districts has its own distinct history and character.

While Shanghai is popular for many places and reasons, the French Concession is somewhere on top of that list.

The Former French Concession has long put its stamp on this part of Shanghai, and it was obviously an honour for French architect Ateliers Jean Nouvel to design an urban space here in tune with its urbanism, its plane trees, narrow streets, and inhabited landscapes. Between Ma Dang and Dan Shui streets, it was tempting to create a shortcut that would be an urban and commercial passageway, a sequence evoking vanished surroundings that have been completely reimagined and are new and modern; a high, narrow street that’s covered and protected.

The buildings need to know where they reside so as to create a desire for unique and unpredictable walks. Being open, the project fits into the quarter’s geometry. The exterior, in a greyish-

(Source: Ateliers Jean Nouvel. Photo ©10 Studio. 恒基-旭辉新天地/The Roof)

(Source: Ateliers Jean Nouvel. Photo ©10 Studio. 恒基-旭辉新天地/The Roof)

(Source: Ateliers Jean Nouvel. Photo ©10 Studio. 恒基-旭辉新天地/The Roof)

beige colour, offers glimpses through the two entrances on Ma Dang and Dan Shui streets, of a surprising array of lights, colours, and vegetation. A shopping street on two levels, sequenced by overhead walkways and small bridges, is submerged between two flowery walls made up of rows of earthenware jars planted with different species, both green and coloured.

First commissioned in July 2014 and completed in May 2021, the project is situated on an 8,400m2 site. It has a total floor area of 40,000m2, with 25,000m2 for offices and 15,000m2 for basement retail, food and beverage area.

The complementarity between the shops facing each other, the activities of the offices, and the restaurants up under the roofs, creates a familiar and naturally animated street, setting pleasing walks as a target and offering an inviting new itinerary between Ma Dang and Dan Shui streets.

Shadowplays produced by the adjustable slats of the blinds, in front of windows bordered by huge flowerpots, play on the mystery of presences and activities thereby protected, while inventing a landscape of vegetal friezes in the colours of the season and of the different flowers. The walls of the passageway will be painted in variations of brown, amber, orange and multiple reds.

Ateliers Jean Nouvel noted that: “I’ve imagined all these loving details to enrich Shanghai, on the Huai Hai side, with this unique new open-and-covered street: ‘the street of 1000 red jars’.”