BUILDING CHINA MODERN: THEME
建设现代中国 主题
1919 1927 1949
Acknowledgements
We the 2015 class of ARCH3266 (Building China Modern with Professor Amy Lelyveld at Yale School of Architecture) would like to thank the following people for their generosity of time and resources in support of our research: Suzanne Noruschat Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
BUILDING CHINA MODERN
建设现代中国
1919 1927 1949
Michael Meng Chinese Studies, Sterling Memorial Library and others
Boyuan Zhang Jessica Elliott John Wan Michael Kolton Edward Wang Clarissa Luwia
Amy Lelyveld ARCH3266 Spring 2015
Table of Contents
PREFACE: ??? 1910 - 1926 SPEAKING A CHINESE VERNACULAR:
Architectural and Literary Theories during the May 4th Movement Boyuan Zhang
SHANGHAI’S LILONG NEIGHBORHOODS:
A Shifting Identity through Literature, Commerce, and Community Jessica Elliott
1927 - 1948 THE PEACH GIRL AND THE CATHAY HOTEL The Peach Girl and the Cathay Hotel John Wan
HARBINGERS OF MODERN OR TRADITION’S DESTRUCTION Airplanes over China Michael Kolton
1949 - 1958 SEEING RED
Investigating Communist Theater and Film from the Liberation to the Great Leap Forward Edward Wang
BUILDING A SQUARE
Changing roles of Tiananmen Square Clarissa Luwia
POST-SCRIPT: The Archive
1910
Timeline: 1910 - 1926 World War I (1914-1918)
China: 1910-1926 Timeline
Treaty of Versailles
Communist Party of China
Signed on June 28, 1919
1st National Congress, July 23-31, 1921 Shanghai French Consession
March 18 Massacre
Abdication of the “last emperor”
March 18, 1926 Beijing
Feb 12, 1912 Beijing
First World War Begins
Bolshevik Revolution
July 28, 1914
May Fourth Movement May 4th, 1919 Tian’anmen Square, Beijing
Assassination of Song Jiaoren
Wuchang Uprising
March 20, 1913 Shanghai Railway Station
Oct 10, 1911 Wuchang
National Goods Movement Boycott of Japanese and Western goods
Manchu Restoration
National Assembly 1910
Yuan Shikai sworn in as Provisional President of the Republic of China
Political
1910
Yuan proclaimed Emperor
1912
1913
1914
Shanghai
North China Famine
Nov 20, 1915 End by his death on June 6, 1920
March 10, 1912 Beijing
1911
May Thirtieth Movement
July 1-July 12, 1917 Beijing
1915
Cultural
1916
1920-1921 Henan, Shandong, Shanxi, Shaanxi, southern Zhili (Hebei)
1917
1918
1919
1920
1921
Workers’ Protest Movement Strikes and Protests
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
Cai Yuanpei Aesthetic education and Western influence on art and literature
Lin Shu Accusatory letter to Cai Yuanpei, battle of old and new thought
Shanghai Radio Broadcasting First broadcasting station established
Datong University in Shanghai Foundation in Nanyang Li
Yingzao Fashi Palace Museum
Rediscovered and reprinted Pingjiang edition
Palace Museum opens to the public
Society for the Study of Literature Diary of a Madman
Nostalgia Lu Xun’s first short story
New Youth Magazine
Lu Xun’s first published short story
Founded in 1915 in Shanghai Moved to Beijing in 1917
founded by Mau Tun and Cheng Chen with a new humanist approach
“We Believe” Manifesto by Xin Qingnian
Lu Qin Zhang Pongfag Zazhi introduces Cubism, Futurism, and other European manifestoes
Shanghai School of Painting Foundation in Shanghai
Kuo Mo-Jo Creation Society
Article on the necessity for a Literature of Revolution
founded with the idea of art for art’s sake
Hu Shih Article in New Youth calling upon the youth of China to create a new culture
Nude Model John Dewey, Bertrand Russell and Radindranath Tagore visit Peking University
Introduction of the nude model, causing controversy by Liu Hai-su
Jessica Elliott
Shanghai’s Lilong Neighborhoods: A Shifting Identity through Literature, Commerce, and Community
1. “Shanghai Longtang,” Jie Li, Shanghai Homes: Palimpsests of Private Life, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015).
Abstract Within the lilong neighborhood housing compounds that continued to densify Shanghai in the early twentieth century, the hybridization of Eastern tradition and Western influences represents the duality of life and identity at many scales within the treaty port of Shanghai from 1919-1927. The high density, low-rise lilong and shikumen neighborhoods that weave through Shanghai’s urban fabric present the hybrid of Chinese culture within Shanghai through the shifts within the design and organization of urban housing, the interplay of commerce and residence, and the interaction of the lilong tingzijian writers with the vernacular literature movement. These three conditions convey the political, economic, and cultural factors that reflect the influences of Western ideologies as they infuse with Chinese traditional culture and alter the ways in which the Chinese urbanites (xiaoshimin) live and interact within the walled compounds of the iconic Shanghai lilong alleyway housing neighborhoods.
Keywords: Shikumen, architecture, Shanghai, lilong, longtang, tingzijian, xiaoshimin, neighborhood, commerce, literature, hybrid
Shanghai Treaty Port
1 1. “Façade Elevation of Lilong Housing,” Qinggong Jiang and Wenlei Xi, Shanghai Li Long Wen Hua Di Tu: Shikumen, (Shanghai: Tong Ji Da Xue Chu Ban She, 2012), 16. 1. Half door with shikumen gate 2. Gabled roof and decoration. 3. Boundary marker. 4. Elevated portion of the compound encloses but allows for passage underneath. 5. Parlor window doors. 6. Dormer windows. 7. Corner stone. 8. Archway 9. Western motifs utilized for decoration.
2. "“Back Elevation of Lilong Housing,” Qinggong Jiang and Wenlei Xi, Shanghai Li Long Wen Hua Di Tu: Shikumen, (Shanghai: Tong Ji Da Xue Chu Ban She, 2012), 18.
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1. Balcony 2. Kitchen 3. Pavilion room 4. Back wing room 5. Back door 6. Chimney
The evolution of Shanghai through the early twentieth century can be demonstrated through the transformations that occurred within the lives and lifestyles of its low and middle class residents living in dense low-rise urban alleyway communities throughout the city fabric. The lilong, shikumen, or longtang neighborhoods of Shanghai represent the hybridity of Shanghai through different modes and scales, and reflect the juxtaposition of Chinese tradition with Western influences brought to the treaty port city over time and through adjustments catalyzed by political and cultural events that would shape modern Shanghai. The identity of Shanghai and its relationship to the overall modernization of China from 1919 to 1927 can be seen within the lilong housing typology through the effects of these shifts within the overall design and composition of these neighborhoods, the capitalist and commercial influences on residential community, and the relationship of the lilong alleyway neighborhoods to the forces of revolutionary literature and cultural movements that take place within the Shanghai alleyway compounds. The role of the lilong and shikumen neighborhood as a reflection of larger systems of connectivity and isolation within the context of Shanghai in the early twentieth century presents the effects that Shanghai’s shifting modern identity had within the urban context of daily life and culture. Beginning in 1843 as the British defeated the Chinese in the first Opium war, Shanghai’s division into four settlements, English, French, American, and Chinese assisted in forming its early composition as a hybrid of culture, both interwoven amongst each other and isolated within their enclaves: “The Chinese residents of Shanghai were, in a sense, also foreigners: they came from all provinces in the nation. The majority were rural folk who flocked to the city looking for a better life. The most numerous of the Chinese immigrants were of two major groups: the little urbanites (xiaoshimin), as they have been called, and the urban poor.” The diversity of urban inhabitants and the role of the foreign enclaves within Shanghai’s urban fabric complicates the ability to distinguish a Chinese identity within Shanghai, but shapes the city through their relationships to commercial, political, and cultural life during important events and changes as Shanghai attempts to establish its place within a modernizing China. The foreign settlements within Shanghai begin as closed societies for the international cohabitants, yet realign in their relation to the city as a whole through the adaptation of these enclaves to incorporate Chinese refugees during political turmoil: “The regulation forbidding Chinese from residing in the foreign concessions was overlooked by both sides and the at first temporary solution for housing became real estate ventures for the foreign settlers to provide dense lilong housing based on the western rowhouse typology and integrating the Chinese courtyard forms that was then replicated all over Shanghai for the next century.”
A Hybrid in Modern Design
3 3. “Shikumen Gate,” Qinggong Jiang and Wenlei Xi, Shanghai Li Long Wen Hua Di Tu: Shikumen, (Shanghai: Tong Ji Da Xue Chu Ban She, 2012), 14. 1. Gate lintel decoration (can be triangular, rectangular, or semicircular. 2. Western design motifs used for decoration. 3. Gate lintel horizontal inscription (words are symbolic for luck, prosperity and ethics. 4. Stone gate frame. 5. Black wooden gate which provides entrance into a residence.
This integration marked the beginning of a new residential typology that would provide a platform through which the Shanghainese urbanites, or xiaoshimin, would shape through the early twentieth century to distinguish a lifestyle and community that responds to and assists in defining the modern Chinese inhabitant. The lilong and longtang neighborhoods and their changes and adaptations particularly during the early twentieth century reveal the components of daily urban life for the xiaoshimin and, as home to over three quarters of Shanghai residents, depicted the effects and products of a modernizing Shanghai. The shikumen lilong housing typology, as a product of the early development of Shanghai, was from the beginning a hybrid of Chinese traditional architectures with various motifs and influences yielded from foreign architecture. The newfound ability for Chinese students to study abroad in Europe and Japan allowed them to bring new ideals and inspirations from their travels and exposure to new architecture back to China. Shanghai, in particular, was heavily influenced by this intermingling of styles. The Bund developed rapidly with Art Deco and Beaux Arts architectural elements and the new building technologies of the early twentieth century generated iconic new buildings that helped to shape Shanghai’s new modern identity. These changes could be seen from the scale of furniture and advertisements that asserted this hybridity within Shanghai culture and society to the scale of the new skyscrapers that began to populate the Bund. The alleyway housing typology could be seen as the archetype of this marriage of stylizations. Their accumulation over the urban fabric “did not merely change the landscape of Shanghai, but, more significant, they marked the beginning in China of a modern real estate market.” The foreign commercialism in the creation of the emergency housing for the Chinese within the foreign enclaves produced a new type of housing development through the necessity of time and space, but also through the greed and influences of the foreign entrepreneurs who abandoned their businesses to take full advantage of the Chinese refugees: “the difference in design, arguably, was derived from the difference in purpose: traditional Chinese houses were constructed individually because they were mostly built by or for owners for their personal use, while the row houses in the foreign settlements were constructed solely for commercial purposes. In Shanghai in the mid-nineteenth century, both the design and purpose of these houses were European innovations.” With the creation of these urban housing solutions, the Chinese became residents of the foreign concessions, paying exorbitant rents to live on their own land. Though the treatment of the facades and the organization of the composition of development merged traditional Chinese architectural elements with western design motifs that created a hybrid of design and architectural language which became a Shanghainese urban housing typology: “The longtang houses, as a kind
4 4. “Alleyway-House Floor Plans Transformation Reflecting the Changing Real Estate Market,” Hanchao Lu, Beyond the Neon Lights: Everyday Shanghai in the Early Twentieth Century, (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999), 148. 1. Xingren Li (Alley of Prosperity and Benevolance), a late 19th century multi-bay, U-shaped shikumen alleyway-house. The floor plan includes an internal courtyard, backyard, and a number of spare rooms. 2. Huile Li (Alley of Joint Pleasure), an early 20th century two-bay, one wing shikumen alleyway-house. 3. Jianye Li (Alley of Establishing Careers), an early 20th century single-bay shikumen alleyway-house. The transformation from the multibay to the single-bay plan reflects the necessity for an increased density, the changes in the real estate market and economics, and the shift towards a nuclear family in place of the multigenerational family.
of architectural form, is neither the imitation of Chinese traditional residential architecture nor the imitation of any Western architecture. It is a new kind of architecture based on the integration of the Chinese and Western exclusively found in Shanghai… which has shaped the most important feature of the modern architecture in Shanghai.” From the composition of the panels and frame of the shikumen gates which are distinctively Chinese, the gabled roofs, dormer windows, and triangular pediments with curved ornamentation represent the convergence with Western architectural design (Figures 1-3). The rows of housing were constructed throughout Shanghai, with paved alleyways for light, access, and ventilation between the rows and an enclosing wall that created a residential compound and the beginning of a new definition for the urban residential community: “The houses thus became part of a tightly knit community, recapturing the memories of the courtyards that once formed the center of family life in traditional Chinese homes.” As an archetype that molded the Chinese traditional courtyard housing with the European rowhouse tenement style, the shikumen lilong housing integrated both eastern and western styles to provide a primarily temporary solution in the mid to late nineteenth century that became a more permanent integration to the creation of high density urban housing in Shanghai throughout the early twentieth century. While the hybrid of the shikumen lilong neighborhoods evolved into different types over time in response to changing desires and necessities of the urban condition in Shanghai, the most significant change takes place in the 1920s as the layout of the housing units becomes the most dense and shifts from the multi-bay plan to the more compact and economical single-bay plan (Figure 4). From the late nineteenth century U-shaped floor plan which incorporated an interior courtyard and multiple bays, the early twentieth century saw a shift first to the two-bay, one-wing shikumen alleyway house and then finally to the single-bay alleyway house. This transformation reflected a necessity in early twentieth century Shanghai for an increased density, a shift from a multi-generational family towards a more nuclear family, and a response to the changes within the larger scale of the Shanghai economy and real estate market: “The whole of 1920s was the most prosperous period of building new-styled shikumen longtang houses. The houses were built higher, as the prices of land kept soaring. The traditional two-storied houses were replaced by three-storied, and sanitary facilities began to appear.” The high price of land and housing cause a number of decisive cultural and sociological changes within the way that the xiaoshimin inhabited the city: people could no longer afford larger houses that allowed for larger families, thus the space inside the shikumen lilong residential unit was redeveloped to be utilized more efficiently and effectively and to address the ranges of income of the residents. With the ever increasing density, the alleyways between the rows of housing
5 5. “The Decorations at the Longtang Entrance with Strong Western Styles,” Luo Xiaowei and Wu Jiang, Shanghai Longtang. (Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Meishi, 1997), 119. 6. “Decorations at the Entrance of Hui Le Li with Western Style,” Luo Xiaowei and Wu Jiang, Shanghai Longtang. (Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Meishi, 1997), 29. 1. A horizontal enscription with the date of the construction of the lilong neighborhood, sometimes with A.D. to demonstrate the Western religious influences. 2. The gate is usually capped with a semi-circular, rectangular, or triangular entryway. 3. The arched Western-style portal opens up to the interior. 4. Constructed of either stone blocks, concrete, or bricks, the gate 5. Western motifs and decorative elements adorn the gate.
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became slightly wider to allow for the passage of vehicles and to address the issues of light and air within the urban housing condition. With these shifts in the lilong housing’s basic composition, the architectonics of the 1920s also developed more heavily with Western architectural features and less Chinese design elements. The late-stage shikumen lilong houses became more decorative than before, but their decorations were more heavily influenced by Western architectural motifs (Figures 5, 6): “a big number of Western ornaments were used on the gate and window frames. Attractive balconies had appeared. The architectural styles, being daily divorced from the Chinese tradition, were getting more close to the Western style.” The lilong entrance gates, constructed of stone blocks, concrete or bricks, featured in many cases a horizontal inscription of the date of construction, sometimes with the notation “A.D.” to signify the influences of Western religion. The gates were also capped with a triangular, semicircular, or rectangular entryway in place of the stepped wall that was more traditionally Chinese and these pediments were heavily adorned by Western Art Deco and classical design motifs for decoration. These developments of lilong neighborhoods continued to densify through the 1920s and began to expand across entire blocks of the city. The Western-style shikumen gates identified the entrances to the walled residential compounds within, and the overall planning of the interior residential housing units flanked the branches of alleyway between. With the lilong entrances off of the exterior streets, main alleyways acted as arteries that connected to smaller branch alleyways that held the southern-facing residential units, while commercial units flank the main streets. The site plan of Huai-Hai Fang in 1924 (Figure 7) depicts the organization of the neighborhoods that yielded a new modernized and self-sufficient urban lifestyle that was a product of the evident isolation and compacting of the lilong urban housing solution: “the city therefore was fragmented into numerous small communities wherein a life of moderate comfort could be obtained and maintained without venturing into the outside world—just a few blocks away. To many residents the few blocks around their homes were what the "city" meant to them, and most of the city's much publicized modern amenities were quite irrelevant to their daily lives.” Children would attend school within their alleyway neighborhood, shopping and any other needs could be met through the surrounding shops within the blocks of the compound, and the shopkeepers’ residences acted as a hybrid of living and working spaces that served the neighborhood and its inhabitants. The communities were almost entirely self-sustaining, and the sense of community that was created by this urban housing typology fostered a new modern neighborhood that acted as a gradient of privacy and a communal urban living experience at many scales with the neighbors who were so close in proximity and in community as to become family.
A Hybrid of Modern Commerce and Residence
7 7. “Huai-Hai Fang Site Plan, 1924,” Qian Guan, “Lilong Housing, A Traditional Settlement Form.” (Thesis, McGill University, 1996), 74. 1. Lilong entrance from the exterior street. 2. Main interior alleyways. 3. Side lane or branch alleyways provide a secondary system. 4. Residential units facing south make up the interior composition of the lilong neighborhoods. 5. Commercial units flank the main streets.
8. “A Bird’s-Eye View of Xiafei Fang in 1924,” Hanchao Lu, Beyond the Neon Lights: Everyday Shanghai in the Early Twentieth Century, (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999), 153.
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1. Single-bay alleyway housing lined along the narrow alleyways that weave in between the Xiafei Fang (Joffre Alley) in 1924. 2. Above the pavilion rooms the small, walled, flat roofs at the back of each unit can be seen. These spaces were morning exercises, drying laundry, and for cooling down on summer nights. 3. Some flat roofs were covered, as residents decided to close these spaces in to an additional small room for more indoor living space. 4. Narrow alleyways could be as small as 5 feet wide, and were referred to as yi xian tian or “one thread of sky.”
As the desirable one-bay plans were more heavily implemented, it was not uncommon to see alleyway house compounds with more than a hundred houses and the limitation of the width of the alleys in order to utilize as much land as possible as development continued through the early twentieth century. The exterior residential spaces at the back of each unit represented the versatility and usability of all spaces within the dense residential typology of the alleyway houses. The flat, walled roofs could be used for activities such as drying laundry or performing morning exercises, or could be enclosed to provide additional interior living space. The aerial view of Xiafei Fang in 1924 (Figure 8) depicts the extreme compression of living spaces within the lilong alleyway compounds, with alleyways as narrow as five feet wide that were referred to as yi xian tian, or “one thread of sky.” This phenomenon of the "semi- Chinese and semi-Western" lilong houses could be found in all layers of the society and culture in Shanghai in the 1920s allowing Shanghai to be seen “as a honeycomb consisting of numerous small cells—the compact, even crowded, arid multifunctional neighborhoods—where people conducted most of their daily activities.” Beginning with the foreign landlords and continuing with the Chinese warlords and entrepreneurs, the movements in the mid1920s reflected the pressures on the Chinese urbanites to live within the economic and political structures that existed and intensified within Shanghai (Figures 9-11). The role of the capitalism and economy within the lilong neighborhoods in Shanghai could be seen as a signifier of the larger economic and political struggles that catalyzed events such as the May Thirtieth movement in Shanghai and the growing pressures from the Chinese capitalists, the Chinese warlords, and the Foreign Imperialists on the Chinese proletariat. The propaganda posters depict these forces torturing the Chinese urban masses to take the ability of the public to afford to live and to survive within Shanghai under the constant and intensifying tensions. From 1910 to 1940, both Chinese and foreign capitalist were shifting their investments to real estate and residential properties, remodeling much of the Nanking Road area housing to lilong neighborhoods in order to more carefully control and profit from the living conditions of the xiaoshimin: “Among the Chinese real estate owners were four families—surnamed Zhang, Liu, Xin, and Peng—known as the "Four Elephants," who owned many shikumen compounds in the Nanking Road area. These four families had a few things in common. They all hailed from Nanxun, Zhejiang province, and all owned a great amount of land and controlled the silk and tea markets there. Having come to Shanghai, they continued their silk and tea businesses but shifted the bulk of their capital to real estate.” But the life within the lilongs during the early twentieth century presented a traditional way of living mixed with innovations for the new ways of living within the city which yielded a sort of
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10 9. “A Chinese Nationalist Party Propaganda Poster Depicting a Foreign Imperialist and a Local Warlord Torturing a Chinese Patriot in the Aftermath of the May 30th Movement in China,” Jonathan D. Spence, In Search for Modern China 1st Ed, (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1990). 1. A fat foreign imperialist dressed in Western business clothing with a top hat. 2. A Chinese warlord in military uniform with a weapon at his side. 3. The Chinese proletariat is tortured and strangled. 4. The skulls that surround them represent the masses of Chinese who are affected.
10. “May Thirtieth in Nanking Road,” Nicholas Clifford, Spoilt Children of Empire: Westerners in Shanghai and the Chinese Revolution of the 1920s, (London: Middlebury College Press, 1992), 169.
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1. The Chinese capitalist wears traditional Chinese garb with a Western hat. 2. The Chinese warlord wears a military uniform. 3. The foreign imperialist is dressed in Western business clothing with a top hat. 4. The Chinese proletariat is tortured as coins are squeezed from his mouth at the hands of the three. 5. The foreign entrepreneur holds the Chinese people upside down in order to take everything possible.
11. “The Bagong Huabao of August 1925,” Nicholas Clifford, Spoilt Children of Empire: Westerners in Shanghai and the Chinese Revolution of the 1920s, (London: Middlebury College Press, 1992), 168. 1. Chinese students are arrested by the municipal police. 2. Chinese students are detained. 3. Masses march the streets in protest. 4. Protests and fighting erupts. 5. Chinese students are massacred at the hands of the foreign police during the May Thirtieth Movement in Nanking Road.
urban enclave that was unique and self-providing. The site plan and circulation diagram of land use (Figure 12) depicts the layers of spatial arrangement that leads from the street to the main alleyway lane to the branch lanes and to the housing unit where the gradient of privacy transitions from the public, semi-public, semi-private, and then to the private realm. “This way of arrangement, being quite enclosed while looked from outside, brought forth a strong sense of regionalism, recognition and safety, making the whole lilong area an entity” and has developed a strong sense of community that encouraged resiliency and perseverance within the city’s tumultuous history during the 1920s. Simultaneously, the national goods movement of the 1920s and 30s, while asserting a boycott of foreign goods, also promoted a series of advertising campaigns that promoted the hybrid shikumen housing design typology in its attempt to sell Western inspired “national goods.” The Sanyou company incidentally marketed a new modern visual culture through the non-traditional urban lifestyle of the shikumen lilong house utilizing “symbols from China, the West, past, and present [that] were taken out of context, broken apart, and then fused back together to produced new images that gained a growing familiarity in the eyes of urban consumers of the 1930s.” While the city of Shanghai reinvented its culture and identity through the economic, social, and political changes in the early twentieth century, these shifts could be witnessed at a the micro-scale dichotomy of unique daily commercial and residential hybridized activity and culture within the walls of the shikumen lilong neighborhoods where “commerce was not limited to just the city's commercial districts but rather was an everyday matter carried out in the narrow paths between residential houses, at the back doors of common households, in people's living rooms, and even in the inner chambers of ordinary homes. It was in this extraordinary mixture of residence and commerce that a vibrant commercial culture was born: commerce was made such a vital part of life that, we may say, one had to commend one's soul to it in order to survive.” With three-quarters of Shanghai’s urban housing consisting of lilong neighborhoods these communities became “a new kind of residence that aimed at adapting itself to the rhythm of living and value in a modern city, meeting the needs of modern capitalist economy and real estate business.” While a single residence might be leased to one family, the introduction of second landlords allowed the family to sacrifice space within their homes in order to sublease extra rooms to decrease the cost of rent or to supplement the income so that the family could live. Despite the second landlord’s collection of rent from these tenants who shared the spaces within their homes, there was no clear distinction between social classes and the sub-community of the residential unit became spaces of increased interaction and coexistence, similar to the families in House 3 in Da Zhongli who have
12 12. “Lilong Site Plan Circulation and Land Use,” Qian Guan, “Lilong Housing, A Traditional Settlement Form.” (Thesis, McGill University, 1996), 45. 1. Lilong entrance from the exterior street. 2. Main interior alleyways. 3. Side lane or branch alleyways provide a secondary system. 4. Residential units facing south make up the interior composition of the lilong neighborhoods. 5. Commercial units flank the main streets.
lived in these lilong neighborhoods for generations (Figures 13, 14). Where at one time the director’s family had two rooms in the house, the second landlord brought in a second family in the 1920s and there was a shift of the family into a single room where the use of the space was condense and more efficiently experienced: The kitchen area was located in the corner of the space, with beds, seating, and furniture rearranged and utilized simultaneously in order to meet the needs of all the family members and constant visitors from the neighborhood community. The presence of the window as a connection between the house interior to the semi-private alleyway lanes outside fostered the communal aspect of the housing and the extension of life from the interior to the exterior spaces. “The common second-landlord/ third-tenant phenomenon was a way in which people coped with life in the city, in search of either success or merely survival.” Lilong compounds always incorporated rows of housing that faced the street and presented the opportunity for a hybridized residential and commercial housing typology. Differentiated from the units on the compound interior, the absence of a front courtyard allowed the front living rooms of these periphery units to be entered directly from the street or sidewalk. These living rooms were flexible spaces that were often dedicated for commercial use in place of living space functioning as small connected shops. (Figures 15, 16). Some shikumen lilong neighborhoods contained a wide variety of businesses from workshops, warehouses, opium dens, brothels, pawnshops, and other small commercial stores that sold goods, groceries, and other products or offered services such as barbering, repair, tailoring, laundry, or served as teahouses or restaurants. These commercial entities of the lilong compounds occupied the first floor of the houses and many residents employed themselves as merchants, artists, prostitutes, magicians, entertainers, street peddlers, and other small entrepreneurs that served the highly local community; “For the people of Shanghai, what mattered most in daily life was the petty but vigorous commerce and activities conducted in an area within walking distance from home, not the dazzling life symbolized by the Bund and Nanking Road.” Many of the incoming residents to the Shanghai lilong neighborhoods were immigrants from surrounding areas, and the ability to utilize the residence within the neighborhood as both a house and a business was ideal and extremely efficient; for those searching for employment and housing, the lilong periphery houses could serve as a solution to both (Figures 17, 18). Thus, in the early twentieth century city of Shanghai, the lilong neighborhoods could be seen as an urban living community of opportunity for the xiaoshimin, and “although modernization of urban infrastructures, Westernization of ways of life, and the appearance of new social classes – workers, entrepreneurs, and so on – changed the forms of Shanghainese collective housing, its
A Hybrid of Modern Socity and Culture
13 13. “Inside House 3 in Da Zhongli” Shu, Haolun, Nostalgia, Documentary film, Directed by Haolun Shu, (Brooklyn, NY: DGenerate Films, 2006). 14. “Life Inside and Outside the Lilong Neighborhood House,” Shu, Haolun, Nostalgia, Documentary film, Directed by Haolun Shu, (Brooklyn, NY: DGenerate Films, 2006). 1. Kitchen and dining area in the corner of the living space. 2. A window to the alleyway lanes provides light, air, and a sense of community. 3. Beds are used for seating, interaction, and sleeping within the same room. 4. Seating arrangements and furniture is rearranged to suit the needs for the residents throughout the day. 5. The Da Zhongli residences seem larger through the use of a higher ceiling.
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deeper structures remained intact. The social community of a lilong benefitted from a more or less comfortable living framework, but had several basic services integrated in the interior lanes: shops selling boiled water, matches, cigarettes, and soaps. Finally, the inhabitants were ensured personal safety by the fact that they all knew each other.” To build upon these topics of politics, economy, and the structure of the lilong housing communities within the larger scope of Shanghai culture and society, the presence of the literature movements within the lilong neighborhoods assisted in symbolizing the cultural changes occurring as China modernized throughout the early twentieth century and also of life in Shanghai. In the wake of political unrest in other areas of China, many of the highly trained and Western-educated writers, artists, and activists of the cultural movements during the 1920s and 30s. The single-bay shikumen houses and the third-tenant systems of subleasing rooms within the lilong neighborhoods provided the young and single writers with a simple and affordable accommodation that would fit their needs and offer them a modest place to study and write, the Tingzijian or pavilion room as seen in the typical floorplan of the lilong single-bay house (Figures 19, 20). These rooms above the kitchens were typically the least desirable as they faced north, and were subleased at a cheaper rent to the young adults who preferred them for their more economic rent and private situation in the house. As a tightly packed space, usually about 108 square feet, the Tingzijian would be rented for around $7 to $8 in the late 1920s (Figure 21). The directionality of the room causes it to receive much less sunlight, but is sometimes preferred for its separation from the other rooms in the house and its access to its own private entrance: “Consequently, pavilion rooms were known for the diversity of their dwellers in these already diverse neighborhoods. One could find… what might be called "intellectual vagrants" of all types, such as unemployed or self-employed artists, dramatists, musicians, and so on. The very name "pavilion room" seems to suggest a room small but cozy, like a pavilion in a traditional Chinese garden.” Famous writers such as Lu Xun, Cai Yuanpei, Guo Moluo, Mao Dun, Ba Jing, Yu Dafu, Liang Shiqiu, Zou Taofen, Ding Ling and Feng Zikai had lived in Tingzijian. Many of their works reflected life in Tingzijian and the lilong neighborhoods, and were later referred to as the "Tingzijian Literature." The interactions of these progressive intellectuals and writers within the communities and in their collective living and working spaces in the tingzijian can be described through Yang Zhihua’s recollection of her husband Qu Qiubai and Lu Xun’s communication and friendship during the early twentieth century in Shanghai’s lilong neighborhoods: "In 1933' Qu Qiubai (1899-1935), the Communist intellectual and leader, lived in a pavilion room in Number 12 Dongzhao Li (Alley of Eastern Lights), within walking distance of Lu Xun's home in Number 9 Dalu Xincun (New Village Continent).
15 15. “Peripheral Shops Along the Streets,” Qinggong Jiang and Wenlei Xi, Shanghai Li Long Wen Hua Di Tu: Shikumen, (Shanghai: Tong Ji Da Xue Chu Ban She, 2012), 30. 16. “Peripheral Shops Along the Streets,” Qinggong Jiang and Wenlei Xi, Shanghai Li Long Wen Hua Di Tu: Shikumen, (Shanghai: Tong Ji Da Xue Chu Ban She, 2012), 30.
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1. Open-air restaurants provide community interaction as well as commerce on the main streets. 2. Commercial/residential unit balconies open up to the street, and are used to hang laundry. 3. Peripheral shops are created in place of the front living space in order to bring in additional income. 4. Alleyway entrances allow for passage underneath an elevated building into the interior lanes of the community. 5. Store front names are placed on the front of the houses for advertisement.
Qu's wife, Yang Zhihua, recalled that her husband's friendship with Lu Xun was forged in a pavilion room: "Almost every day Lu Xun paid us a visit. He chatted with Qiubai on various subjects politics, current news, and literature—and we enjoyed having him as if he were fresh air and warm sunlight in a boundless world. Qiubai was a quiet person, but every time he saw Lu Xun his mood immediately changed. They talked happily and sometimes laughed heartily, enlivening the stuffy pavilion room. We were always reluctant to let Lu Xun leave, but after every visit, his laugh, happiness, and warmth remained in our little room. Lu Xun wrote some of his most famous works in the Tingzijian rooms within the alleyway neighborhood housing throughout Shanghai and participated in the foundation and development of some of Shanghai’s newest radical journals and publications during the 1920s and 30s, such as Wilderness. The works of “the men from a Shanghai pavilion room” were even mentioned by Mao Zedong in his 1938 speech in Yan’an. The importance of these writers and the spaces in which they lived and worked acted as symbols of life in Shanghai and through their work assisted in creating a sort of documentation of the transitions and modernization in modes of thinking and living that was taking place in the shikumen lilong neighborhoods during the early twentieth century: “it is by living in these small garrets that rich writing materials about life and the ways of the world were gathered. What they saw and heard here became an inexhaustible source of their creation. They kept their faith and worked hard on writing, producing superb literary works… These young progressive writers endured the sufferings and helped open up a new world in the emerging culture of Shanghai.” These writers and intellectuals within the lilong neighborhoods were the catalysts for much of the progression of vernacular literature and the cultural movements of the 1920s and 30s, another eastern and western ideological hybrid that combined the aspects of politics, culture, economics, and society with the urban lilong housing typology and assisted in Shanghai and China’s greater transformations and modernization during the early twentieth century. The typology of the lilong neighborhoods as representative of life in modern Shanghai and their multilayered connections to Shanghai’s shifting identity continued to maintain importance through to the end of the twentieth century: “By 1940, three quarters of Shanghai’s four million plus population lived in some form of lilong. These provided the majority of Shanghainese with accommodation right through to the 1990s when Shanghai’s development boom saw many lilongs razed for high-rise development.” Though the sense of community and experiences of lifestyle within the lilong neighborhoods has retained much of its qualities from the 1920s, the ability of the low-rise housing typology to adapt to the ever-increasing rapid urbanization and development of Shanghai has shifted to its transformation from urban
17 17. “A Birds and Flowers Shop in the Longtang,” Luo Xiaowei and Wu Jiang, Shanghai Longtang. (Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Meishi, 1997), 156. 1. Residents of the lilong alleyway house sit leisurely in front of their store. 2. Birds and flowers and other goods are sold within the neighborhood and to the people who pass along the streets outside. 3. Moving in past the storefront, the interior private residence begins.
18. “An Open-air Restaurant and General Store in the Longtang,” Luo Xiaowei and Wu Jiang, Shanghai Longtang. (Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Meishi, 1997), 157. 1. An open-air restaurant takes place in the alleyway. 2. Beginning in the 1920s, alleys were constructed at a wider scale, to allow for automobiles to pass within. 3. The commercial exchange also yields community interaction within the lilong community.
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housing for the xiaoshimin and families who have called the shikumen lilong neighborhood fabric home for generations to a commercial and capitalist tourism recreation, seemingly coming full circle. The Xiantiandi development in particular, razes a lilong community and “preserves” the typology although replaces the traditional culture and lifestyle with the new tourist clubs, shops, and restaurants. It is interesting how the connections between Lu Xun’s early twentieth century tingzijian writings such as Nostalgia connect to the documentaries and efforts at preservation and recording the life within the lilong neighborhoods through films such as Haolun’s Nostalgia in the early twenty-first century. Much like the way in which “in total contrast to the soaring glass and steel skyscrapers that transformed the spatial dynamics on the ground, Shanghai nostalgia in the 1990s romanticized the crammed alleyways and cluttered courtyards that were ultimately destined for the bulldozers. Changhen ge (Song of Everlasting Sorrow, Wang Anyi) relishes the salacious curiosities and reverberating gossip of the crammed existence of a suppressed past. It writes into the urban legend a new kind of tale, with soap-opera flare, that glamorizes the ins and outs of the alleyway houses in their closing days.” The hybrid of Eastern and Western culture, design, commerce, and society has been always present in the composition and experiences of modern urban life in Shanghai within the lilong neighborhoods and demonstrates the effects and importance of the larger scale shifts and transformations in Shanghai to the lives of the people who are the lifeblood of the city and its densely populated and interspersed communities of micromodernity: But Shanghai's image as modern China's showcase of Westernization often overshadowed the persistence of the past in the daily life of the "little people.” While things Western were literally a daily part of life (although they were not necessarily exploited by every person every day), the people of Shanghai comfortably kept and adapted many old customs and lifestyles. Though the influence of the West was readily apparent on the city’s major thoroughfares and played up by the Chinese upper classes, in the narrow alleys that crisscrossed the city tradition prevailed. Moreover, changes often had to coexist, integrate, or intertwine with continuities. If Shanghai was a place where two cultures- Chinese and Western—met but neither prevailed, it was not because the two were deadlocked but because both showed remarkable resilience. It was precisely in this conjunction that, for many, lay the charm of the city…Again, the vitality of tradition in Chinese life should be seen as an indicator of the elastic, even buoyant nature of the people in their way of coping with a rapidly changing world. Thus, the high density, low-rise lilong and shikumen neighborhoods that weaved through Shanghai’s urban fabric through the mid nineteenth century to today presented the hybrid of Chinese culture within Shanghai through the shifts within the design and
19 19. “Lilong House Typical Plan,” Hanchao Lu, Beyond the Neon Lights: Everyday Shanghai in the Early Twentieth Century, (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999), 245. 1. A typical lilong house facing the street has an entrance that opens directly to the sidewalk. 2. The back living room is pushed further into the bay to yield a more private space. 3. The front living room, without a courtyard, offers a flexible space that could be utilized as a store if the residents desired additional income. 4. The pavilion room, or tingzijian, was located above the kitchen and facing the north and was subleased at a cheaper rent to young adults who preferred the economic and more private space.
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20. “Bao Kang Li, 1914 Plan,” Luo Xiaowei and Wu Jiang, Shanghai Longtang. (Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Meishi, 1997), 12. 1. The lilong housing in the early 20th century shifts to a single-bay plan, with interior residential units featuring a front courtyard entrance. 2. The saloon becomes the front interior living space. 3. Circulation through interior staircases leads to the second floor, open to the interior courtyard. 4. The kitchen is typically placed at the north of the residential unit. 5. Above the kitchen is the pavilion room, or tingzijian, usually subleased. 6. The front room usually subleased also, to another family.
and organization of urban housing, the interplay of commerce and residence, and the interaction of the lilong tingzijian writers with the vernacular literature movement. These transformations occurred most strikingly in the 1920s when the constant shifting identity of a modernizing Shanghai conveyed the political, economic, and cultural factors of Western influences as they infused with Chinese traditional culture and altered the ways in which the xiaoshimin lived within and impacted a modernizing image and identity of Shanghai.
Bibliography
21 21. “Pavilion Room,” Qinggong Jiang and Wenlei Xi, Shanghai Li Long Wen Hua Di Tu: Shikumen, (Shanghai: Tong Ji Da Xue Chu Ban She, 2012), 62. 1. The pavilion room faces north, which is considered the least desirable room in the alleyway house. These rooms were subleased for a more affordable rent. 2. The table is covered in artist tools, signifying the use of the pavilion spaces for young artists and writers who preferred the pavilion rooms for the cheaper rent and more private location in the house. 3. The pavilion rooms were tightly packed.
1. Anne, Sue. “Behind the Camera: Xi Zi On Documenting Shanghai’s Longtang and Shikumen.” Shanghai Street Stories, June 12, 2010. Accessed March 15, 2015. http://shanghaistreetstories.com. 2. Anyi, Wang. The Song of Everlasting Sorrow, A Novel of Shanghai. Beijing: Zuojia Chubanshe, 1995. 3. Arkaraprasertkul, Non. “Resilient Lilong: An Ethnography of Shanghai’s Urban Housing.” Thesis, Oxford University, 2012. 4. Choko, Marc H. and Chen Guangting. China: The Challenge of Urban Housing. Montreal: Éditions du Méridien, 1994. 5. Clifford, Nicholas. Spoilt Children of Empire: Westerners in Shanghai and the Chinese Revolution of the 1920s. London: Middlebury College Press, 1992. 6. Guan, Qian. “Lilong Housing, A Traditional Settlement Form.” Thesis, McGill University, 1996. 7. Jiang, Qinggong, and Wenlei Xi. Shanghai Li Long Wen Hua Di Tu: Shikumen. Shanghai: Tong Ji Da Xue Chu Ban She, 2012. 8. Johnston, Tess and Deke Erh. A Last Look: Western Architecture in Old Shanghai. Hong Kong: Old China Hand Press, 1993. 9. Johnston, Tess and Deke Erh. The Last Colonies: Western Architecture in China’s Southern Treaty Ports. Hong Kong: Old China Hand Press, 1997. 10. Junhua, Lu, Peter G. Rowe and Zhang Jie. Modern Urban Housing in China 1840-2000. New York: Prestel Verlag, 2001. 11. Kuo, Jason C. Visual Culture in Shanghai, 1850s-1930s. Washington D.C.: New Academia Publishing, 2007. 12. Li, Xiangning and Xiaochun Zhang. “From Lilong to International Community.” Shanghai Transforming: The Changing Physical, Economic, Social and Environmental Conditions of a Global Metropolis. New York: Actar, 2008. 13. Lu, Hanchao. Beyond the Neon Lights: Everyday Shanghai in the Early Twentieth Century. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999. 14. Pridmore, Jay. Shanghai: The Architecture of China’s Greatest Urban Center. New York: Abrams, 2008. 15. “Public Health.” English Weekly (Ying-yu Chou-pao) no. 202, August 16, 1919. Shanghai Commercial Press: 1919, 26. Yale Divinity Library Collections. 16. Qiu, Weigang. “Boys of ‘Long-Tang.’” Shanghai Transforming: The Changing Physical, Economic, Social and Environmental Conditions of a Global Metropolis. New York: Actar, 2008. 17. Shu, Haolun. “Nostalgia.” Shanghai Transforming: The Changing Physical, Economic, Social and Environmental Conditions of a Global Metropolis. New York: Actar, 2008. 18. Shu, Haolun. Nostalgia. Documentary film. Directed by Haolun Shu. 2006. Brooklyn, NY: DGenerate Films, 2006). DVD.
Cultural Relevance
Bibliography (continued)
The impacts of a modernizing China in the early twentieth century can be seen in the social, political, cultural, and economic factors that were at work in Shanghai between 1919 and 1927, particularly in the urban low-rise high-density communities of the shikumen lilong and longtang neighborhoods. The typology of the lilong compound and its residential unit marks the concrete changes in the lives of the xiaoshimin in response to the larger shifts and transformations of Shanghai through its cultural movements, political turmoil, and economic forces that were of great influence in the 1920s. As a representation of the development and adaptations of a culture and society in transition, the iconic Shanghai lilong neighborhoods, its residents, and its lifestyle demonstrated the hybridity and versitility of China’s people in the search for a modern identity.
19. Spence, Jonathan D. In Search for Modern China 1st Ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1990. 20. “Virtual Shanghai Project: Shanghai Urban Space in Time,” last modified February 4, 2015, http://www.virtualshanghai.net/. 21. Warr, Anne. Shanghai Architecture. Sydney: The Watermark Press, 2007. 22. Xiangyu. “Gelou Shijing (Ten Views from a Loft).” Shanghai Shenghuo (Shanghai Life). 2, no. 3 (August 1938), 11-13. 23. Xiaowei, Luo and Wu Jiang. Shanghai Longtang. Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Meishi, 1997. 24. Xun, Lu. The Complete Stories of Lu Xun. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1981. 25. Yan, Xia. Under the Eaves of Shanghai. Film. Directed by Xia Yan. 1937. Beijing: Zhongguo Xiju Chubanshe,, 1957. 26. Yeh, Wen-hsin. Shanghai Splendor: Economic Sentiments and the Making of Modern China, 1843-1949. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007. 27. Zhang, Jie, Yisan Ruan and Chenjie Zhang. Shanghai Shikumen. Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Publishing House, 2011. 28. Zhao, Echo. “Shanghai’s Incredible Longtang Alleyways.” The World of Chinese, May 17, 2010. Accessed March 15, 2015. http:// www.theworldofchinese.com.
China: 1919-1927 Individual Timeline
Communist Party of China 1st National Congress, July 23-31, 1921 Shanghai French Consession
Communist Party of China Second Meeting
Treaty of Versailles Signed on June 28, 1919
Greater Shanghai Municipality Law establishes the municipal government of the Chinese city
Second meeting place in Xing Changli lilong (Now Xingtiandi)
North China Famine
March 18 Massacre
1920-1921 Henan, Shandong, Shanxi, Shaanxi, southern Zhili (Hebei)
March 18, 1926 Beijing
May Fourth Movement May 4th, 1919 Tian’anmen Square, Beijing
Kuomintang Troops of Chiang Kai-shek Troops enter Shanghai
National Goods Movement
May Thirtieth Movement
Boycott of Japanese and Western goods
Shanghai
Workers’ Protest Movement Strikes and Protests
Political
1920
1919 Cultural
1921
1922
1923
1924
1926
1925
Lin Shu Accusatory letter to Cai Yuanpei, battle of old and new thought
Shanghai Radio Broadcasting First broadcasting station established
Palace Museum Palace Museum opens to the public
Yingzao Fashi Rediscovered and reprinted Pingjiang edition
Daxia University
Society for the Study of Literature
Foundation in Meiren Li
founded by Mau Tun and Cheng Chen with a new humanist approach
Creation Society founded with the idea of art for art’s sake
Diary of a Madman Lu Xun’s first published short story
Kuo Mo-Jo
Wilderness
Article on the necessity for a Literature of Revolution
Journal founded by Lu Xun and the Weiming Society
Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies
School for literature and film founded
Nude Model Introduction of the nude model, causing controversy by Liu Hai-su
1927