Rediscover Missing Sino-modernism

Rediscover Missing

Sino

modernism

A Research Based on Architectures in Shanghai

PB  |  01

Rediscover Missing Sino-modernism A Research Based on Architectures in Shanghai

Word count: 8628

Abstract

Abstract

There have been numerous researches on the modern movement in the 20th century. In recent years, attention was attached to the early history of modernism outside Europe and the United States. However, China remained a missing piece in the worldwide narrative of modern movement.

This dissertation aims to fill the gap by arguing that the localisation and development of modernism in China can date back to the inter-war period.

This research takes Shanghai as an example of the prosperity in Architecture during the early 20th century. Using the existed literature as a measurement by comparative reading, this work manages to figure out a solid social and economic base that could engender the modern movement. This article also reviews and evaluates the Chinese architectural journals and newspapers during that period to trace the tendency towards modernity among local architects and the public. Furthermore, the comparative case study illustrates that the modern movement in China was stimulated by Europe but soon became a trend towards modernity promoted by architects from different backgrounds. Modernism was not an imported style, but a new doctrine based on the local demand and aesthetics. It was Sino-modernism. Due to limited historic data and time span, this article failed to offer a panorama of modernism in China. Instead, it elaborates on three typical cases to glimpse the origin of Sino-modernism. Some suggested examples are attached to the appendix for further study.

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Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my special appreciation and thanks to my tutor, Elizabeth Baldwin Gray, who helped and advised me through the writing of the dissertation with her patient and kindness. I would lose my way in the numerous sources without your guide. I would also like to show my gratitude to Yuqi Qin. You are the greatest partner giving me love and against under the pressure of the dissertation. Moreover, you are an honest friend who provided me with access to the wonderful László Hudec Collections with all your effort; and kept giving me valuable advice on writing during the last half-year. I would also like to thank my parents. It is your support that enables me to realise the dream to become an architect, and it is you who provides me additional photos and literature from China that I required during the writing.

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Contents

Contents

Abstract

i

Acknowledgements

iii

List of Illustrations

1

001

The Unfinished Histography of Modernist Architecture 009

1.1 Early Interpretation: The Bias and Myth from the Western

010

1.2 Late Histography: Progress and Limitation

015

1.3 Sino-modernism in Shanghai: Source and Criteria

019

2

The Threshold of Modernism in Shanghai

023

2.1 Industrialisation and Technical Innovation

023

2.2 Urbanisation, the Housing Crisis and Architects’ Reactions

026

2.3 Chinese Architects Approaching Modernism

034

3

The Notions of Modernity Came into Practice

039

3.1 Hongqiao Sanatorium

044

3.2 Empire Mansion

051

3.3 Villa of D. V. Woo

059

4

The Immature Modernism

073

4.1 The Dilemma of Nationalism

073

4.2 The Lack of Education

076

4.3 The Prevalence of Kitsch

080

5

The End of the First Phase of Sino-modernism

083

Bibliography

085

Appendix A: Map of Cases

095

Appendix B: Supplementary Figures of the Field Research

097

Appendix C: Glossary

101

List of Illustrations

P3 | Fig. 1 Banister Fletcher, Tree of Architecture in A History of Architecture , 1896, from: http://phylonetworks.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-tree-ofarchitecture.html P5 | Fig. 2 Junzo Sakakura, Japanese Pavilion on the Paris Expo, 1937, from: Alfred Roth, The New Architecture: Presented in 20 Examples , 2nd edn (Erlenbach-Zürich: Éditions D’Architecture, 1946), p. 165 P6 | Fig. 3 [Anon.], cover of Kokusai Kenchiku , 1930, from: Jean-Louis Cohen, The Future of Architecture Since 1889: A worldwide History (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2011), p. 191 P7 | Fig. 4 [Anon.], covers of the inaugural issues of The Chinese Architect (left) and The Builder (right), 1932, from: http://dingyue.ws.126.net/L7J5DroSM2r0zIQH2rt=xCiFcxd3=b5KJIrxzNUCrr9C61560248351606compressflag.jpg and http://image.thepaper.cn/www/image/11/724/815.jpg P7 | Fig. 5 Architect Wenzhao Fan, from: Edward Denison and Guang Y. Ren, Modernism in China: Architectural Visions and Revolutions (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2008), p. 88 P10 | Fig. 6 Palmer & Turner, Sassoon House, 1927, from the Virtual Shanghai Collections: https://www.virtualshanghai.net/Asset/Preview/dbImage_ID15094_No-1.jpeg P11 | Fig. 7 [Anon.], banners of the architecture section of The China Times (left) and The Shun Pao (right), copies of microfilms from the Shanghai Library List of Illustrations

P14 | Fig. 8 Yuanhe Zhou and Shenyuan Wu, Historical Research on Population in Shanghai , 1985, from: Fudan Xuebao (Shehui Kexue Ban) [Fudan Journal (Social Sciences Edition)], 4 (1985), 90-99, p. 91 P16 | Fig. 9 General view of the Bund, 1873, from the Virtual Shanghai Collections: https://www.virtualshanghai.net/Asset/Source/dbImage_ID17618_No-1.jpg P17 | Fig. 10 [Anon.], weaving shed of the Pudong mill of the Japan-China Spinning & Weaving Co., Ltd.,1924, on The Far Eastern Review , from the Virtual Shanghai Collections: https://www.virtualshanghai.net/Asset/Source/dbImage_ ID-35156_No-01.jpg P17 | Fig. 11 [Anon.], public market behind Shanghai’s former Town Hall, 1899, from: Denison and Ren, p. 61 P18 | Fig. 12 Palmer & Turner, Union Assurance Company of Canton, 1916, photograph by W. H. Cameron, from the Virtual Shanghai Collections: https:// www.virtualshanghai.net/Asset/Source/dbImage_ID-14939_No-1.jpg P17 | Fig. 13 H. Becker and R. Steel, Russo-China Bank in Shanghai, 1901, from the Virtual Shanghai Collections: https://www.virtualshanghai.net/Asset/ Source/dbImage_ID-14944_No-1.jpg P22 | Fig. 14 Alexander Klein, comparative studies on house plans, 1939, from: https://jsah.ucpress.edu/content/ucpjsah/76/1/82/F6.large. jpg?width=800&height=600&carousel=1 P23 | Fig. 15 Qianshou Lu and Jingqi Wu, apartment for employees of Bank of China, 1933, left: copy of microfilms of The Chinese Architect , 2, 7 (1934), p.

9 from the Shanghai Library, right: photograph by author on 7th Sep 2019 P25 | Fig. 16 [Anon.], apartments built by Dojunkai Corporation in Omotesando, 1927, photograph by u*yam, from: https://live.staticflickr. com/37/79227700_680206e880_o_d.jpg P26 | Fig. 17 Nianying Li, Siwei Court, 1931, left: copy of microfilms of The Chinese Architect , 27 (1936), p. 33 from the Shanghai Library, right: photograph by author on 7th September 2019

001 | 002

P27 | Fig. 18 [Anon.], unknown modernist architecture, copy of microfilms of The China Times, 31 January 1931, Section II, p. 4 from the Shanghai Library P28 | Fig. 19 [Anon.], Evelyn Court near London, copy of microfilms of The Builder, 4, 5 (1936), p. 21 from the Shanghai Library P28 | Fig. 20 N. K. Doo, brief on the reinforced-concrete cantilevered roof in a racecourse in La Plata, Argentine, 1934, copy of microfilms of The Builder, 2, 6 (1934), p. 28 from the Shanghai Library P28 | Fig. 21 [Anon.], the former police headquarters, courts and fire station in Newcastle, copy of microfilms of The Builder, 3, 11&12 (1935), p. 17 from the Shanghai Library P28 | Fig. 22 American architect Carl Lindbohm, copy of microfilms of The China Times, 15 Febuary 1933, Section II, p. 4 from the Shanghai Library P32 | Fig. 23 [Anon.], Foochow Road Market (left), Seymour Road Market (middle), from: Xiaoming Zhu, ‘Jianzao Benyuan: Yuan Shanghai Gongbuju Zhoushan Lu Caichang Jianzhu Bijiao Yanjiu [Original Construction: A Comparative Study of the Original Shanghai Municipal Council Chusan Road Public Market]’, Shidai Jianzhu [Time + Architecture], 2 (2015), 110-117, p. 112, and E. Owen Williams, Boots D10 Factory (right),1932, photograph by Nick Lee, from: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nickplee/7428486376/in/photolistcjqWcj-83HABh-83EBPe-83HDb5-83Hzfj-83ECXK-83HxPq-83EvSB-M3B6rCsxds6L-27NocaZ-bBsgGC-27NocXR-5X5DWS-5X1qdT-5X5DM7-dTq7vWbQmWqT-27NobLc-27NobcX-awaTTT-7dVyz1-jRpG6k-2ethi7L-osdneJ27NocAi-83HENq-7dYYvB-7dYXgr-8DmqVg-8DpxMQ-7dRE2r-7e1V3P7dVxAb-7dREix-7dY5UF-8DvbZu-7dTYVw-7dVxLh-8DmqLD-a5zkmn-8Dpy5A8DpxD3-qqgQP6-9hrg1Z-9hunNL-9huoAC-9hreYZ-9hrfQ6-9hunms/lightbox/ P32 | Fig. 24 Fuquan Xi, building of Shanghai Times before (left) and after (right) refurbishment, 1937, copy of microfilms of The Chinese Architect , 28 (1937), p. 28 from the Shanghai Library

List of Illustrations

P32 | Fig. 25 Façade of the former Sacred Heart Vocational College of Girls five years ago (left) and the current appearance (right), left: from: https:// b1-q.mafengwo.net/s13/M00/D7/FC/wKgEaVyc_2qASIKzABGmsqFcw5015. jpeg?imageMogr2%2Fthumbnail%2F%211360x940r%2Fgravity%2FCenter%2Fcrop%2F%211360x940%2Fquality%2F90, right: photograph by author on 12th September 2019 P33 | Fig. 26 Fuquan Xi, Hongqiao Sanatorium, 1934, copy of microfilms of The Chinese Architect , 2, 5 (1934), p. 11 from the Shanghai Library P35 | Fig. 27 Alvar Aalto, Paimio Sanatorium, 1933, photograph by Fabrice Fouillet, from: http://fabricefouillet.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/ cf038721-copie.jpg P36 | Fig. 28 Fuquan Xi, aerial view of the Hongqiao Sanatorium, 1934, copy of microfilms of The Chinese Architect , 2, 5 (1934), p. 3 from the Shanghai Library P37 | Fig. 29 Alvar Aalto, collective terraces of the Paimio Sanatorium, 1933, photograph by Geson Rathnow, from: https://live.staticflickr. com/4083/5026989328_6e7cb2bb8b_o_d.jpg P37 | Fig. 30 Richard Döcker, terraced balcony of the Waiblingen Sanatorium, 1928, from the RIBA Collections: https://www.architecture.com/image-library/ ribapix/image-information/poster/county-hospital-waiblingen-the-terrace/ posterid/RIBA11220.html P38 | Fig. 31 Richard Döcker, compared typologies of sanatorium in Terrassentyp , 1929, from: Jean-Bernard Cremnitzer, ‘The Sanatorium in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s‘, in Alvar Aalto architect Volume 5: Paimio Sanatorium 1929-33 , ed. by Mia Hipeli and Esa Laaksonen (Helsinki: Alvar Aalto Foundation, 2015), pp. 113-117 (p. 115) P39 | Fig. 32 Fuquan Xi, section of the Hongqiao Sanatorium, copy of microfilms of The Shun Pao , 18 June 1934, p. 16 from the Shanghai Library P40 | Fig. 33 Fuquan Xi, plans of the Hongqiao Sanatorium, 1937, copy of microfilms of The Builder , 2, 1 (1934), pp. 17-18 from the Shanghai Library

003 | 004

P40 | Fig. 34 Alvar Aalto, Paimio Sanatorium site plan, 1933, from: Teppo Jokinen, ‘Paimio Sanatorium‘, in Alvar Aalto architect Volume 5: Paimio Sanatorium 1929-33 , ed. by Mia Hipeli and Esa Laaksonen (Helsinki: Alvar Aalto Foundation, 2015), pp. 7-43 (p. 10) P41 | Fig. 35 Alvar Aalto, main staircase of the Paimio Sanatorium, 1933, photograph by Arnout Fonck, from: https://live.staticflickr. com/3905/14414076494_651ef3c7fb_o_d.jpg P42 | Fig. 36 Fuquan Xi, balconies of the Hongqiao Sanatorium, 1934, copy of microfilms of The Chinese Architect , 2, 5 (1934), p. 16 from the Shanghai Library P42 | Fig. 37 Architect Fuquan Xi during his study in Germany, from: http:// img.mp.sohu.com/upload/20170530/56f8a37835e04bf9bf79d7f144c5aaa8_ th.png P45 | Fig. 38 Yuanji Huang, Empire Mansion, 1935, left: photograph by author on 7th September 2019, right: copy of microfilms of The Chinese Architect , 3, 4 (1935), p. 3 from the Shanghai Library P47 | Fig. 39

Roger Sherwood, six types of modern housing in Modern Housing Prototypes , 1978, diagiams by author based on the book P48 | Fig. 40 Richard Ferdinand Podzemný, Skleněný Palác, 1937, from: https://www.denarchitektury.cz/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/rv1_2698.jpg P48 | Fig. 41 Yuanji Huang, vertical structures on the façade of the Empire Mansion’s central volume, 1935, photograph by author on 7th September 2019 P49 | Fig. 42 Richard Ferdinand Podzemný, typical upper floor plan of the Skleněný Palác, 1937, from: F. R. S. Yorke and Frederick Gibberd, The Modern Flat , 2nd edn (London: The Architectural Press, 1948), p. 51, and Roger Sherwood, illustrations of double-orientation units and multiple vertical access systems, 1978, from: Roger Sherwood, Modern Housing Prototypes (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), pp. 3, 17 P49 | Fig. 43 Yuanji Huang, typical upper floor plan of the Empire Mansion, 1935, copy of microfilms of The Chinese Architect, 3, 4 (1935), p. 5 from the Shanghai Library, and Roger Sherwood, illustrations of single-orientation units and single-loaded corridor systems, 1978, from: Sherwood, pp. 3, 19.

List of Illustrations

P50 | Fig. 44 Moses Ginzburg and I. Milinis, section of the Narkomfin Apartment, 1928, diagiams by Matthew Wieber, from: https://archinect.imgix. net/uploads/hs/hs78889ye2j3p5us.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat P52 | Fig. 45 Walter Gropius, east façade of Siemensstadt Housing Development project, 1930, photograph by Carsten Krohn, from: Carsten Krohn, Walter Gropius: Buildings and Projects , trans. by Julian Reisenberger (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2019), p. 112 P52 | Fig. 46 Yuanji Huang, façade of the Empire Mansion, 1935,photograph by author on 7th September 2019 P53 | Fig. 47 Architect Arthur Kruze, copy of microfilms of Journal De Shanghai , 17 July 1934 from the Shanghai Library P54 | Fig. 48 Architect László Hudec, from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Hudec#/media/File:Hugyecz_L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3. jpg P55 | Fig. 49 László Hudec, Grand Theatre, 1933, photograph by author on 8th September 2019 P55 | Fig. 50 Jaromír Krejcar, Czechoslovak Pavilion in the Paris Expo, 1937, from: Cohen, p. 259.

P57 | Fig. 51 László Hudec, Villa of D. V. Woo, 1938, left: copy of the László Hudec Collection from University of Victoria, BC, Canada, right: photograph by author on 12th September 2019 P56 | Fig. 52 Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye, 1931, from: Jacques Sbriglio, Le Corbusier: The Villa Savoye , trans. by Sarah Parsons (Berlin: Birkhäuser, 2008), p. 15 P59 | Fig. 53 László Hudec, site plan of the Villa of D. V. Woo, 1938, photograph by Gaomin Fan, from: Lvwu Fuxing [Rebirth of the Green House], ed. by Gaomin Fan and Zhenhua Yao (Shanghai: Xuelin Press, 2016), p. 12 P60 | Fig. 54 László Hudec, north façade of the Villa of D. V. Woo, 1938, photograph by Livelikerw, from: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ commons/e/e4/333_Tongren_Road_Shanghai.JPG P60 | Fig. 55 László Hudec, strip windows of the north façade of the Villa of D. V. Woo, 1938, photograph by author on 12th September 2019 005 | 006

P61 | Fig. 56 Le Corbusier, ground-floor plan of the Villa Savoye, 1931, from: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_l7bUXvJppmg/S7yXtJkQYHI/AAAAAAAAAYI/ mvscnSwqH2Y/s1600/groundfloorplan.jpg P61 | Fig. 57 László Hudec, ground-floor plan of the Villa of D. V. Woo, 1938, copy of the László Hudec Collection from University of Victoria, BC, Canada P62 | Fig. 58 László Hudec, first-floor plan of the Villa of D. V. Woo and the independent staircases of the service quarter, 1938, left: from: Fan and Yao, p. 7, right: copy of the László Hudec Collection from University of Victoria, BC, Canada P63 | Fig. 59 László Hudec, main staircase of the Villa of D. V. Woo, 1938, photograph by author on 12th September 2019 P63 | Fig. 60 László Hudec, outdoor staircase of the Villa of D. V. Woo, 1938, photograph by author on 12th September 2019 P63 | Fig. 61 László Hudec, green and pale-yellow tiles for façades of the Villa of D. V. Woo, 1938, from: Fan and Yao, p. 46 P63 | Fig. 62 Le Corbusier, north-east façade of the Villa Savoye, 1931, from: Sbriglio, p. 13.

P64 | Fig. 63 László Hudec, former dining room of the Villa of D. V. Woo, 1938, copy of the László Hudec Collection from University of Victoria, BC, Canada P64 | Fig. 64 Adolf Loos, interior of the Villa Müller, 1930, from: https://cdnvsh.prague.eu/object/493/jpg-035.jpg P66 | Fig. 65 Murphy & Dana, Ginling College, 1921, from: https://miro. medium.com/max/4845/1*TY08WRrOt5rAHKdnbEInVQ.jpeg P66 | Fig. 66 Yen-chih Lü, Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, 1929, photograph by Jeremy Shih, from: https://live.staticflickr. com/6117/6390471959_3706c9b5e1_o_d.jpg P67 | Fig. 67 Dayu Doon, Municipal government building, 1933, photograph

by Coolmanjackey, from: https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:20130904-%E4% B8%AD%E5%8D%8E%E6%B0%91%E5%9B%BD%E4%B8%8A%E6%B5%B7%E 5%B8%82%E6%94%BF%E5%BA%9C%E5%A4%A7%E5%8E%A6.jpg

List of Illustrations

P67 | Fig. 68 Dayu Doon, China Aviation Association building, 1935, photograph by author on 12th September 2019 P68 | Fig. 69 Dayu Doon and the model of his house, 1935, from: Liang Zhang, Ordinary Metropolis, Shanghai: A Model of Urbanism (Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Fine Art Publishing House, 2015), p. 75 P70 | Fig. 70 Chinese Society of Architects, member list of the Chinese Society of Architects, 1932, copy of microfilms of The Chinese Architect , 1, 1 (1932), pp. 39-40 from the Shanghai Library P71 | Fig. 71 American Architect Henry Murphy, from: Denison and Ren, p. 103 P73 | Fig. 72 Other buildings built during the 1930s in Shanghai, photograph by author on betweem 7th and 8th September 2019 P76 | Fig. 73 Dayu Doon, Industrial Material Laboratory at the Institution for Chinese Engineers, 1935, copy of microfilms of The Chinese Architect , 2, 3 (1935), p. 21 from the Shanghai Library P19 | Tab. 1 Annual output of steel in China, 1926-1932, diagiams by author based on Haiping Qian, ‘Yi <Zhongguo Jianzhu> Yu <Jianzhu Yuekan> Wei Ziliaoyuan De Zhongguo Jianzhu Xiandaihua Jincheng Yanjiu [A Study on the Course of Modernization of Chinese Architecture Based on the Information Sourced from the Architecture Journal The Chinese Architect and The Builder in 1930's]’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Zhejiang University, 2011), p. 230 P19 | Tab. 2 Population of Shanghai, 1910-1930, diagiams by author based on Yuanhe Zhou and Shenyuan Wu, ‘Shanghai Lishi Renkou Yanjiu [Historical Research on Population in Shanghai]’, Fudan Xuebao (Shehui Kexue Ban) [Fudan Journal (Social Sciences Edition)], 4 (1985), 90-99 (p. 95) P72 | Tab. 3 Overseas cases on The Builder , 1932-1937, diagiams by author based on publications of The Builder

007 | 008

The Unfinished Histography of Modernist Architecture

1. Panayotis Tournikiotis,

The Historiography of Modern Architecture

(Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1999), p. ix.

2. Ibid., p. 3.

3. Duanfang Lu, ‘Introduction: architecture, modernity and identity in the Third World‘, in

Third World Modernism, Architecture, Development and Identity , ed. by Duanfang Lu (New York: Routledge, 2011), pp.

1-27 (p. 1).

The histography of the modern movement or modernist architecture dates back to the 1920s. It started upon the emergence of the new architecture and developed with the evolution and distribution of the modernist doctrine.

Thenceforth, architects and historians have contributed to large pieces of literature.1 However, as Panayotis Tournikiotis has suggested, these works that discuss precisely the same events in architecture interpreted modern movements widely differently. Thus, there was a plurality of the histories of the modern movements using different terms, with each having a position slightly apart from others.2 Nonetheless, these perspectives were more or less western-centric. Duanfang Lu, in his essay, indicated that the history of modernist architecture in developing countries was not weighed as much as that in the West, despite its extensive adoption.3 China, along with other third-world countries, was frequently ignored. This Western bias was more evident in the early histography. The later pieces had attempted to eliminate this bias but on a limited stage, and neither the tendency towards post-war modernism nor the superficial chronicle of architects and their projects brought a comprehensive narrative to the early Chinese modernism. Therefore,

Chapter 1 | The Unfinished Histography of Modernist Architecture

the history of the modern movement in China during the interwar period remains a missing piece of the interpretation of international modern architecture.

Early Interpretation: The Bias and Myth from the Western Social and ideological limitations lay in the initial interpretations of modern movements. Herbert Spencer and his social Darwinism, Shin Muramatsu and Yasushi Zenno argued, had impacted the realm of architecture in the 19th and 20th centuries. This was evident in Fletcher’s tree of architecture, which placed Western architecture superior to those in India, China and the Islamic world (Fig. 1). Muramatsu and Zenno claimed that this Western-centred histography heretofore kept efficacious, and it unquestionably moulded the discourse of the early literature.4 Hitchcock’s Modern Architecture: Romanticism and Reintegration published in 1929, Turpin Bannister claimed, was the first discussion in English about architectural history including architects of the early twentieth century.5 In this work, he created a three-act narrative on modern architecture, starting in the middle of the 18th century.6 In the first two parts, he stated the disintegration between architecture and building during the Romantic period

4. Shin Muramatsu and Yasushi Zenno, ‘Zhongguo Jindai Jianzhu De Pingjia, Baohu Yu Zailiyong [Evaluating, Rescuing and Preserving Asian Historical Architecture in the Modern History] ‘, in Zhongguo Jindai

JIanzhu Yanjiu Yu Baohu San [Study and Preserva-

tion of Chinese Modern Architecture III], ed. by Fu-he Zhang (Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2004), pp. 3-10 (p. 3).

5. Turpin C. Bannister, ‘Space, Time and Architecture, the Growth of a New Tradition by Sigfried Giedion’, The Art Bulletin , 26 (1944), 134-138 (p.

134).

6. Henry-Russell Hitchcock,

Modern Architecture: Romanticism and Reintegration , 1st Da Capo

Press edn (New York: Payson & Clark, 1929; repr. New York: Da Capo Press, 1993), pp. 3-4.

009 | 010

Fig. 1 The Tree of Architecture in A History of Architecture by Sir Banister Fletcher (1896) showed a Euro-centrism ignoring the architectural development in other area

and their reintegration in the late 19th century. However, Donald Egbert illustrated Hitchcock’s main interest in a band of architects that were developing their own aesthetic notion on new materials and techniques in the new century.7 Hitchcock called them the New Pioneer – a term later used by Pevsner in 1936. He managed to entitle the necessity of the New Pioneer by tracing the reaction and succession between different periods and architects based on European architectural development. Thus, a discourse focused on limited countries and masters, and a hierarchy centred in Europe was established.8

7. Donald Drew Egbert, ‘Modern Architecture by Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Jr.’, The Art Bulletin , 12 (1930), 98-99 (p. 98).

8. Ibid.

9. Sigfried Giedion, Space,

Time and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition , 5th edn (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), pp. 164-165.

10. Ibid., p. 167.

11. Ibid., pp. 167-195.

In 1941, Giedion emphasised the social and technical factors of the emergence of the new architecture in his

Space, Time and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition . In chapter three, he evaluated the architecture potentials appearing in engineering construction in the 19th century. Hereby he considered industrialisation as the background of these potentials.9 Since those industrial buildings led the innovation and development eventually transiting to private houses.10 Moreover, industrialisation provided sufficient new materials for this kind of innovation.11 Giedion also argued that the rising importance of engineering and the appeal of the 011 | 012

Fig. 2 The Japanese Pavilion on the Paris Expo, 1937 designed by Junzo Sakakura was the only non-western architecture in Alfred Ruth’s collection The New Architecture (1946)

Chapter 1 | The Unfinished Histography of Modernist Architecture

Fig. 3 Cover of

Kokusai Kenchiku (The Modern Architect) – this

magazine included many articles by well-known architects both Japanese and Western, regarding the mainstream twentieth century architecture and the modern movement

integration of science and art pushed architects to keep exploring the new path.12 However, the book in general – like Hitchcock – mainly focused on the architects and cases in Europe and America.13 Yet he offered a relatively broadened horizon in its 5th edition in the 1960s.14 This Western bias had another variant in the early narrative of the modern movement – it was the myth that architectural innovation could only happen in developed countries. Li-san Ge had pointed out that the heterogeneity of architectural development in China between the twenties and thirties was severe.15 Hence the stagnation of architecture in the inland area of China overcovered the possibility of the emergence of the modern movement in coastal cities like Shanghai, and China was utterly absent in the early narrative of modernism.

12. Giedion, pp. 211-218.

13. Bannister, pp. 134-135.

14. Giedion, p. v.

15. Li-san Ge, ‘Zhongguo Yanhai Didai Yu Neilu Diqu Jindai Jianzhu Fazhan Bijiao Yanjiu [A Comparative Study on Modern Architectural Development in China’s Coastal and Inland Areas]‘, in Zhongguo Jindai

JIanzhu Yanjiu Yu Baohu Yi [Study and Preserva-

tion of Chinese Modern Architecture I], ed. by Fu-he Zhang (Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 1999), pp. 3-14 (pp. 3-4).

16. Alfred Roth, The New

Architecture: Presented in 20 Examples , 2nd

edn (Erlenbach-Zürich: Éditions D’Architecture, 1946), p. 7.

In The New Architecture , Alfred Roth believed that the advance in new architecture was more realisable in countries with social, economic and political stability and highly developed techniques.16 Regardless of his praise on the innovations in small countries and his emphasis on locality and variety, his criteria on the selection of countries 013 | 014

Fig. 5 Architect Wenzhao Fan (Robert Wenchou Fan) – he was recorded as the first Chinese architect attending an international meeting

Fig. 4 Covers of the inaugural issues of The Chinese Architect (left) and The Builder (right) – these two

periodicals of architectures were both Shanghai-based and firstly published in 1932 17. Roth, p. 8.

18. Ibid., pp. 7, 165-172.

19. Jean-Louis Cohen, The

Future of Architecture Since 1889: A worldwide History (London: Phai-

don Press Limited, 2011), pp. 190-194, 265.

20. Ling Zhao, 'Jianzhu Qikan Yu Jindai Shanghai Zhongguo Zhiye Jianzhushi De Shehui Jiagou [Architectural Periodicals and the Societal Construction of Chinese Professional Architects of Modern Shanghai]‘, in Zhongguo Jindai

JIanzhu Yanjiu Yu Baohu Liu [Study and Preserva-

tion of Chinese Modern Architecture VI], ed. by Fu-he Zhang (Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2008), pp. 794-803 (p.

795).

Wenzhao Fan, ‘Ouyou Ganxiang [Record of European Tour]’, The Chinese Architect , 24 (1936), 11–19 (p. 11).

resulted in a limitation and, to some extent, Eurocentrism.17 He attempts to provide “the numerous practical results of different countries”; however, Japan was the only country outside Europe and America mentioned in his book for its pavilion in the 1937 Paris Expo (Fig. 2).18 It is undeniable that Japan was more advanced in the early modern movement. It published the journal Kokusai Kenchiku (The Modern Architect) (Fig. 3) in 1925 and had Tetsuro Yoshida attend the second CIAM conference in 1929.19 Nevertheless, China, conversely, having its first architectural periodicals in 1932 (Fig. 4) and the first record of architects attending an international meeting in 1935, when Wenzhao Fan (Fig. 5) attended the 14th International Housing and Town Planning Congress in London, was virtually excluded from the contemporary record of international interaction.20 Late Histography: Progress and Limitation The later historians had been aware that the Western centrism lay in the discourse of their precedents. They attempted to go beyond it and made significant progress.

However, they still had their limitations, and China was almost veiled or with little narration.

Chapter 1 | The Unfinished Histography of Modernist Architecture

Compared with Hitchcock's and Giedion’s works, Kenneth Frampton’s Modern Architecture: A Critical History provided an independent interpretation of urbanisation and industrialisation as the background of modern architecture in part one. Although it focused on Europe and America as well, its clear narrative can be easily translated to universal criteria. Frampton also recognised that terms like International Style were superficially universal.21 Therefore, he categorised those dishevelled trends in the modern movement by their initial social and ideological notion, rather than by morphology criteria. Frampton also accepted the crosscurrent of eclecticism and classicalism in part two. Thus, he created a series of overlapped sections, highlighting the masters, and leading to a comprehensive interpretation. However, he only applied a worldwide aspect for the narrative of the post-war architecture, while South Africa, Brazil and Japan were the only countries involved in the early modern movement in his narrative.22 As indicated in the preface and introduction, this may result from the ruin of Eurocentrism and the varying depth of research on numerous materials.23

21. Kenneth Frampton,

Modern Architecture: A Critical History , 4th

edn (London: Thames & Hudson, 2007), p. 248.

22. Ibid., pp. 253-261.

23. Ibid., pp. 7-8.

Like Frampton, William Curtis negated terms in the earlier literature for its inadequateness and blame on the 015 | 016

24. William J. R. Curtis,

Modern Architecture since 1900 , 3rd edn

(London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1996), p. 10.

25. Ibid., pp. 371-394.

26. Cohen, pp. 14-17.

27. Ibid., pp. 272-285.

concept of International Style for obscuring the richness and locality of modernism during the inter-war period.

He also suggested, in the preface, that the diversity of national and regional tradition was one of the features of modernism, against a morphology universality.24 Curtis underlined the interaction between the new concept and regional tradition, the parallel trends inside and outside the modern movement in a broad historical background.

Compared with Frampton, he provided a broader horizon to the modern movement between the wars: a panorama of modernism from Japan to Middle Eastern states such as Turkey and Egypt, as well as Latin American countries like Mexico and Brazil.25 Unfortunately, China was ignored again.

Jean-Louis Cohen went further than other historians.

After evaluating the previous histography of modern architecture, he set his discourse to a more comprehensive point of not neglecting architects with less heroic careers and architectures of mass production, as well as the hybridisation and assimilation in colonies.26 Thus, he offered a more detailed interpretation than Curtis in Africa and Asia.27 Hence, China was brought into the narrative of inter-war architectural history. However, the narration

Chapter 1â&#x20AC;&#x192; |â&#x20AC;&#x192; The Unfinished Histography of Modernist Architecture

Fig. 6 Sassoon House (1929) – this edifice in Shanghai, along with the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing, was selected by Cohen to represent the Chinese architecture during the inter-war period

is limited to several paragraphs, and the discussion on the evidence of modernism was overwhelmed by the description of the influence of the Beaux-Arts model, nationalism and American taste (Fig. 6).28 Although there were monographs on Chinese modernism, the existence of early modernism in China still lacked evolution. Edward Denison had composited an integrated history and defined modernity of China.29 Yet the introduction of numerous architectures based on their styles in the following chapters overlaid the discussion on the ideology, making it a chronicle of various edifices.

It also led to Denison’s conclusion disregarding a true modern movement even in coastal cities like Shanghai:

28. Cohen, pp. 161, 279283.

29. Edward Denison and Guang Y. Ren, Modern-

ism in China: Architectural Visions and Revolutions (Chichester: John

Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2008), pp. 9-11.

30. Ibid., p. 224.

31. Liang Zhang, Ordinary

Metropolis, Shanghai: A Model of Urbanism

(Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Fine Art Publishing House, 2015), p. 6.

Modernism in Shanghai, as in New York before the Second World War, was undoubtedly more of a style than a doctrine. 30 Nonetheless, the opposite opinion was manifest as well, according to Liang Zhang:

We should see it as a kind of incorporation of the diverse nature that is firmly rooted in the local, and a cultural pattern that blends hybridity, which creates a multi-dimensional sample for a model of "modernity". 31 017 | 018

Fig. 7 Banners of the architecture section of the two Shanghai-based Chinese newspaper

The China Times (left) and The Shun Pao (right), showing the public concern on the architecture

Thus, comprehensive and consistent research on the existence of modernism in Shanghai and then China becomes essential.

32. Haoyu Wang and D.C.K. Hui, 'Cong Gongjiang Dao Jianzhushi: Zhongguo Jianzhu Chuangzuo Zhuti De Xiandaihua Zhuanbian [From Craftsmen to Architects: The Diversification of the Architectural Profession in Modern China]‘, in

Zhongguo Jindai JIanzhu Yanjiu Yu Baohu Si [Study and Preservation of Chinese Modern Architecture IV], ed. by Fu-he Zhang (Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2004), pp. 589-606 (pp. 591592, 596).

33. Ge, pp. 4, 13.

34. Ling Zhao, p. 795.

Sino-modernism in Shanghai: Source and Criteria During the 1920s and 1930s, the majority of the first generation of modern Chinese architects and their worldwide counterparts gathered in Shanghai.32 Therefore, Shanghai kept pace with Western countries and witnessed prosperity in architecture before the invasion of Japan in 1937.33 The numerous practices might have innovated the following architects and contributed to the emergence of the local modern movement. The publishing of two architectural journals and boom of public media in Shanghai during this period also provided abundant records of these practices (Fig. 7).34 These original records ranged from technical drawings of the buildings to descriptions of the design process. The ideology and methodology of the first generation of modern Chinese architects were illustrated in these newspapers and periodicals as well. These Chinese sources will be beneficial for evaluating the architecture of inter-war-period Shanghai. Moreover, scholars have conducted considerable research on the social and economic background of Shanghai during that period, for

Chapter 1 | The Unfinished Histography of Modernist Architecture

instance, those concerning urbanisation and industrialisation (Fig. 8). Therefore, we could capture a comprehensive picture of the development of architecture in Shanghai during the 1920s and 1930s.

35. Giedion, pp. 2-3, 19-20, 22.

36. Ibid., p. 18.

The aforementioned literature, however, could be considered as a beneficial grid for evaluation, regardless of its Eurocentrism and the absence of China.

Giedion has established a methodology for architectural history research in his texts. He argued that the evaluation should consider the social, economic, technical and national background for the integrality of history and then back to the architecture itself for its historical continuity.35 Besides, facing a transition period with chaos, he named two classes of facts: the constituent facts , which are recurrent and cumulative tendencies, and the transitory facts , which are sporadic trends, and used them to confine the destination.36 Therefore, the evaluation of modernism in Shanghai is threefold: the investigation of social, economic, technical and political background that may generate modernism, the analysis of changes in architectsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; ideology, the discussions and manifestos about the essence of 019â&#x20AC;&#x192; |â&#x20AC;&#x192; 020

Fig. 8 Historical Research on Population in Shanghai

(1985) – considerable research has been conducted on the social and economic history of Shanghai for its importance

37. Curtis, p. 11.

architecture towards modernity, and the assignment of architectures with modernism features.

Then these Eurocentrism texts could be the measure by comparative reading. All the books underlined similar sources for the emergence of modernism: the industrialisation with new building forms, new materials and new techniques, the rising importance of engineering, and the urbanisation with the concentration of population. Furthermore, a standard based on the essential quality was concluded by Curtis. That is, new architecture should be based on new construction means, inclined to functions, eliminate the historical reminiscence, benefit human betterment, and cater to modern life.37 However, as the post-war works indicated, the resistance of traditionalism and classicalism, the influence of nationalism and regionalism, which lead to the localisation of modernism, should never be ignored. The research on the interaction between modernism, nationalism and traditionalism would lead to a more comprehensive picture of that time.

Chapter 1 | The Unfinished Histography of Modernist Architecture

021 | 022

The Threshold of Modernism in Shanghai

38. Hitchcock, p. 92.

Giedion, pp. 163-218.

39. Wang and Hui, p. 589.

40. Yishi Liu and Fu-he Zhang, 'Zhongguo Jindai Chengshi Guihua Moshi Ji Jianzhu Yangshi Yanjiu [A Study of the Typology of Modern Chinese Urban Planning and Architectural Styles]‘, in

Zhongguo Jindai Jianzhu Yanjiu Yu Baohu Wu

[Study and Preservation of Chinese Modern Architecture V], ed. by Fu-he Zhang (Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2006), pp. 621-639 (p.

629).

41. Chenghao Lou and Yijun Tao, Shanghai

Bainian Gongye Jianzhu Xunji [Centennial Indus-

trial Buildings of Shanghai] (Shanghai: Tongji University Press, 2017), p.

6.

42. Ibid., pp. 16-17, 25.

Industrialisation and Technical Innovation Discourses on European architecture have illustrated that industrialisation had motivated the architecture towards modernity long before the emergence of modernism in the 1920s. Hitchcock had praised the new technologies and those new forms of buildings including factories and warehouses during the transition era, while Giedion gave a detailed narrative of the tangled innovation in new techniques and new building forms stimulated by each other.38 Apropos of Shanghai, although industrialisation was imported along with colonisation, it fuelled the modernisation of architecture.39 As one of the concessions since 1842, Shanghai was prosperous in its modern industry and related constructions.40 The docks and warehouses of foreign companies along the Huangpu River first appeared in the 1860s (Fig. 9).41 This progress in waterway transportation was associated with the rapid development of the industry. Between 1895 and 1914, foreign capitals invested more than 291,000,000 dollars in Shanghai, establishing 41 factories with a registered capital of more than 100,000 dollars.42 The Chinese-owned industry, as a reaction of the foreigner-oriented industrialisation,

Chapter 2 | The Threshold of Modernism in Shanghai

Fig. 9 General view of the Bund (1873) showing the prosperous waterway transportation on the Huangpu River. Docks and warehouses can be found in the front and the background

developed as well. Besides Jiangnan Arsenal funded

by Hung-chang Li in 1865 and Shanghai Machinery and Textile Bureau in 1892, the private-owned industry also appeared in the 1860s.43 After the revolution, it experienced a boost in its development. By 1935, there were 6,097 workshops and factories in Shanghai with 416,368 workers.44 These factories, like those in Europe and America, were trials of new techniques and materials. In 1865, Shanghai Gas Company built the first steel structure in Shanghai, and the cast-iron column was first used in Hwa-Shing Cotton Mill in 1889; then, by the 1920s, the steel-frame roof had become popular in factories (Fig. 10).45 The concrete, on the other hand, was first introduced to the structure in a chimney of Shanghai Power Company in 1895.46 These innovations eventually transitioned into civilian architecture. A market behind the town hall opened in 1899 was the first public structure with steel frame and glass roof in China (Fig. 11). The first steel-frame building was Union Assurance Company of Canton (Fig. 12) in 1916, while Russo-Chinese Bank (Fig. 13) in 1901 became the first ferroconcrete edifice.47

43. Lou and Tao, pp. 34, 3942.

44. Rhoads Murphey,

Shanghai: Key to Modern China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1953), pp. 168-169.

45. Lou and Tao, pp. 81-82.

46. Jiang Wu, Shanghai

Bainian Jianzhu Shi 1840-1949 [A History of Shanghai Architecture 1840-1949] (Shanghai: Tongji University Press, 2008), p. 59.

47. Denison and Ren, pp.

61-62.

These innovations, meanwhile, went along with the localisation of building materials. The steel of the 023 | 024

Fig. 10 Weaving shed of the Pudong mill of the Japan-China Spinning & Weaving Co., Ltd. (1924) – the steel-frame roof was introduced into this building

Fig. 11 The Public Market behind Shanghai’s former Town Hall (1899) was one of the first structures built entirely with steel and glass in China

Fig. 13 Russo-China Bank in Shanghai (1901) - the first non-industrial building introducing ferroconcrete structure in China

Chapter 2 | The Threshold of Modernism in Shanghai

Fig. 12 Union Assurance Company of Canton (1916) – the first steel-frame office building in Shanghai

Union Assurance building, for example, is supplied by Shanghai Dock and Engineering Company.48 Despite the predominance of Japanese-owned companies, the annual production of steel in 1932 was 425,335 tons (Tab. 1).49 The manufacture of cement advanced further. The first Chineseowned producer was Green Island Cement Company in 1886.50 Afterwards, the national cement production grew to 1,020,000 tons in 1936 – even more than the domestic consumption. Notably, Shanghai itself produced 100,000 tons.51 Moreover, the modernised production of bricks, glazed tiles, timbers, paintings and steel windows were also localised, all of which contributed to the development of architecture towards modernity in Shanghai.52 Urbanisation, the Housing Crisis and Architects’ Reactions Urbanisation – along with the concentration of the population – happened in Shanghai, too. However, its track differed from those of European cities. The urbanisation in Europe, as Frampton suggested, was motivated by industrialisation and agricultural innovation.53 At the same time, World War I only added to the housing crisis for its damages to the city.54 On the contrary, the population of Shanghai was directly stimulated by wars and riots in addition to industrialisation. The Taiping Rebellion was the

48. Denison and Ren, pp.

64-65.

49. Haiping Qian, ‘Yi <Zhongguo Jianzhu> Yu <Jianzhu Yuekan> Wei Ziliaoyuan De Zhongguo Jianzhu Xiandaihua Jincheng Yanjiu [A Study on the Course of Modernization of Chinese Architecture Based on the Information Sourced from the Architecture Journal The Chinese Architect and The Builder in 1930's]’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Zhejiang University, 2011), pp.

228-230.

50. Hongbin Zheng, Yong Wu and Peng Peng, ‘Jindai Shanghai Gangjinhunningtu Jianzhu Jishu De Fazhan (1896-1916) [Development of Building Reinforced Concrete Techniques in Modern Shanghai (1896-1916)]’, Gongye Jianzhu [Industrial Construction], 49, 6 (2019), 76–81 (p. 77).

51. Haiping Qian, pp. 223225.

52. Ibid., pp. 231-238.

53. Frampton, p. 11-12.

54. Cohen, p. 106.

025 | 026

Tab. 1 Annual output of steel in China – although Japanese-owned companies maintained their predominance, the production kept rising during 1926 and 1932

Tab. 2 The population of Shanghai doubled after the revolution in 1911 within 20 years

Chapter 2 | The Threshold of Modernism in Shanghai

first of them. It increased the population of Shanghai from 544,413 to 691,919 in 12 years. Before the revolution in 1911, the population had grown to 1,289,353. Afterwards, the battles between warlords in other areas and the development of industry keep pushing refugees and workers to Shanghai (Tab. 2).55 The population reached 3,404,435 in 1933, with a built-up area of 824 square kilometres.56 Additionally, World War I and the crisis during the inter-war era, relatively, contributed to the growth of the population too. Political and racial problems across Europe made Shanghai an oasis for refugees, increasing the city's foreign population to 48,806 by 1930.57 However, the consequences of the population concentration and urbanisation were similar in Shanghai and European cities. As the immigrant tended to settle in the concession and the surrounding region, the population density soared dramatically in some areas. For instance, the highest was 146,610 people per kilometre in the Shanghai International Settlement.58 Thus, there were slums with inferior quality like those in Europe, as Baoru Wang cried in the Shanghai-based newspaper The China Times in 1933:

55. Yuanhe Zhou and Shenyuan Wu, ‘Shanghai Lishi Renkou Yanjiu [Historical Research on Population in Shanghai]’,

Fudan Xuebao (Shehui Kexue Ban) [Fudan

Journal (Social Sciences Edition)], 4 (1985), 90-99 (pp. 94-95).

Murphey, pp. 20-21.

56. Zhou and Wu, p. 95.

Dehui Yang, ‘Shanghai De Jianzhu: Cong Dushi Shuodao Jiaowai [The Architecture in Shanghai: From Urban to Suburban]’, The China Times , 31 May 1933, Section III, p. 3.

57. Murphey, p. 22.

Daiying Huang, ‘Shanghai Jianzhu Guoqu Ji Jianglai [The History and the Future of Shanghai Architectures]’, The China Times , 15 February 1933, Section IV, p. 2.

58. Zhou and Wu, pp. 9697.

(Regardless of the progress in architecture,) buildings 027 | 028

Fig. 14 Alexander Klein’s comparative studies on house plans was part of the collective endeavour of simplify movement in Germany

59. Baoru Wang, ‘Dushi Jianzhu Yu Pingmin Zhusuo [The Edifice of the Metropolis and the Housing for the Lower Class]’, The China Times , 19 April 1933, Section III, p. 3.

60. Cohen, p. 70.

61. Huanruo Huang, ‘Chuzufang De Gailiang [The Improvement for Rental Housing]’, The Builder , 1 (1932), 38-40.

Cohen, pp. 241-242.

62. Zongwen Sun, ‘Kexue De Juzhu Wenti: Jianzhu Weisheng Mantan Zhiyi [Living scientifically: Talking about the Hygiene of Housing I]’, The China Times , 26 April 1933, Section III, p. 3.

63. Yuen-Hsi Kuo, ‘Xin Zhongguo Jianzhu Zhi Shangque [New Chinese Architecture]’, The Builder , 2, 6 (1934), 15-23 (p.

16).

of the housing for lower classes in Shanghai are far from satisfying! 59 Therefore, Chinese architects sought to improve the living environment for ordinary residents through the late 1920s to 1930s. They tried to offer a new standard and guideline for residents, like their European contemporaries, who were concerned about hygiene.60 In 1932, Huanruo Huang presented an instruction for the rental housing design in the first issue of the Shanghai-based Chinese architecture periodical The Builder . It was a manifesto emphasising the access to sunlight, the well-design ventilation, the introduction of modern sanitary appliances and expanded courtyards. In addition, it also called for economic considerations, focusing on universal demands, eliminating ornaments and emphasising on structure stability. Furthermore, it had already developed the notion like the minimal dwelling standard in Germany, trying to determine the space of the room based on domestic activities (Fig. 14).61 Meanwhile, it was widely recognised among the Chinese architects that science, rationalism and functionalism applied to all kinds of housing.62 They also criticised the traditional dwelling for its narrow windows and the consequently limited sunlight and fresh air.63

Chapter 2 | The Threshold of Modernism in Shanghai

029 | 030

031 | 032

Fig. 15 ◀ The apartment for employees of Bank of China was constructed between 1923 and 1946, while the third phrase built in 1933 had already showed a tendency toward simplified form and flat roof

Fig. 16 Apartments built by Dojunkai Corporation in Omotesando (1927) was considered as the oversea echo of European public housing

64. Yang, The China Times , 31 May 1933, Section III, p. 3.

65. H. J. Huang, ‘Jingji Zhuzhaiqu Jihua [Plan for an Economical Residential District]’, The Builder , 2, 10 (1934), 25.

N. K. Doo, ‘Juzhu Wenti [New Houses]’, The Builder , 1, 4 (1933), 2433 (p. 24).

66. Qianshou Lu and Jingqi Wu, ‘Shanghai Jisifeier Lu Zhongguo Yinhang Hangyuan Sushe Jianzhu Shuyao [The Introduction on the Apartment for Employee of Bank of China on Jessfield Road, Shanghai]’, The Chinese Architect , 2, 7 (1934), 1-11.

67. Cohen, p. 186.

68. Nianying Li, ‘Siwei Cun [The Siwei Court]’, The Chinese Architect , 27 (1936), 28-34.

Besides, the idea of the new autonomous housing projects became popular among those architects, along with the idea of designing higher buildings.64 Not only were these Chinese architects interested in the planning principles of the complex, but they were also intrigued by some idealised projects, which later became practices.65 The apartments for the employees of the Bank of China on Jessfield Road (now Wanghangdu Road) designed by Qianshou Lu and Jingqi Wu were typical examples of such practices (Fig. 15). They were composed of various types of flats, as well as the playground, community centre and hospital, all showing a tendency towards modernism in their design language.66 Moreover, Cohen mentioned that between 1926 and 1934, Japan had committed rows of reinforced-concrete housing units after the earthquake, expressing innovation in techniques and design (Fig. 16).67 In the early 1930s, some public houses in Shanghai shared structural and morphological similarities with the Japanese ones. For example, the Siwei Court in 1931 (Fig. 17), demonstrated the attempts of Chinese architects in the worldwide modern movement.68 However, like their European peers, Chinese architects during this period failed to provide these new houses to workers but instead

Chapter 2 | The Threshold of Modernism in Shanghai

Fig. 17 The Siwei Court (1931) was one of the experiment innovations on li-long housing (similar to terraced house), with a reinforced-concrete structure

provided them to white-collars.69

69. Cohen, p. 176.

Chinese Architects Approaching Modernism

70. Ling Zhao, p. 795.

The Chinese architects approached modernism closer than expected. Before the two Shanghai-based periodicals, The Builders and The Chinese Architects , they had set a weekly architecture section in the local newspaper, The China Times , in 1930.70 Apart from the discussion on architectural design, they also introduced tendencies and projects around the world. Architectural news could be as simple as an illustrated picture of a modernist apartment in New York (Fig. 18).71 Nevertheless, it also included a translated report of American architect Margaret Van Pelt about the popularity of the glazing façade in Germany.72 Though ignored by the West, unidirectional internationalisation was started by those Shanghai-based architects. After 1933, the two journals offered a broader perspective of the world. The cases included the Evelyn Court, a social housing project in Hackney near London (Fig. 19) and the reinforced-concrete cantilevered roof on a racecourse structure in La Plata, Argentina (Fig. 20).73 The report and details on the former police headquarters in Newcastle (Fig. 21), regardless of its eclecticism design, did illustrate that the aspect of those Chinese architects was not limited

71. [Anon.], ‘Niuyue Zuixin Gongyu Zhi Shiyang [The Up-to-date Style of Apartment in New York]’, The China Times , 31 January 1931, Section II, p. 4.

72. Margaret Van Pelt Vilas, ‘Deguo Shengxing Boli Touming Dasha [The Popularity of Glazing Façade Building in Germany]’, trans. by Yu You, The China Times , 20 October 1931, Section II, p. 4.

73. [Anon.], ‘Yingguo Aifolin Xincun [The Evelyn Court in British]’, The Builder , 4, 5 (1936), 21-22.

N. K. Doo, ‘Kantai Shang Zhi Gangjin Shuini Xuantiao Wuding [The Cantilevered Roof above the Grandstand]’, The Builder , 2, 6 (1934), 28.

033 | 034

Fig. 18 Photo of an unknown modernist architecture, with the caption The Up-to-date Style of Apartment in New York – it was publish on The China Times on the 30th of January, 1930 74. [Anon.], ‘Yingguo Newcastle-Upon-Tyne Zhi Zong Xunbufang, Fayuan Ji Jiuhuohui Lianhe Bangongting [Police Headquarters, Courts and Fire Station, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne]’, The Builder , 3, 11&12 (1935), 17-21.

75. Le Corbusier, ‘Jianzhu De Xin Shuguang [A New Dawn in Architecture]’, trans. by Yujun Lu, The Chinese Architect , 2, 2 (1934), 42-43.

Le Corbusier, ‘Jianzhu De Xin Shuguang (Xu) [A New Dawn in Architecture (Continuation)]’, trans. by Yujun Lu, The Chinese Architect , 2, 3 (1934), 35-38.

Le Corbusier, ‘Jianzhu De Xin Shuguang (Xu) [A New Dawn in Architecture (Continuation)]’, trans. by Yujun Lu, The Chinese Architect , 2, 4 (1934), 37-38.

76. Wu, p. 150-151.

77. Qiyi Gu, ‘Zhongguo Jianzhu Zhi Guoqu Ji Jianglai (Xu) [The History and the Future of Chinese Architectures (Continuation)]’, The China Times , 30 August 1931, Section II, p. 3.

in big cities like London and New York.74 Le Corbusier’s 1930 speech in the USSR was translated and published as well, highlighting the open-mindedness of Chinese architects towards modernism.75 The open-mindedness then became praxis. Wenzhao Fan, who used to be a traditionalist, invited the American modernist architect Carl Lindbohm to Shanghai in 1933 (Fig. 22), promoting the International Style.76 Nonetheless, their desire for innovation was not only manifest in their receptivity to worldwide trends. An endogenic demand for a new style for the new era was frequently referred to during that period. This demand, meanwhile, was motivated by the revolution in 1911, stressing a trend away from classicalism and traditionalism.

In 1931, in a serial in The Chine Times , Qiyi Gu had criticised both the classical architectures and those eclecticism ones trying to combine traditional Chinese elements with contemporary structures and plans.77 He called for a new style that shared the essence rather than the appearance of traditional architecture, applied modern materials and

Chapter 2 | The Threshold of Modernism in Shanghai

Fig. 19 Drawings of Evelyn Court near London in

The Builder , Volume 4, Issue 5 (1936) - the record on this project also includes plans of the building

Fig. 20 Brief on the reinforced-concrete cantilevered roof in a racecourse in La Plata, Argentine, designed by T. Marfott and J. Szelagowski – published on The Builder , Volume 2, Issue 6 (1934)

Fig. 21 Photo of the former police headquarters, courts and fire station in Newcastle in a report in The Builder , Volume 3, Issue 11 (1935) – it illustrated a worldwide horizon on architecture

Fig. 22 American architect Carl Lindbohm – he was invited

by Wenzhao Fan to Shanghai promoting the International Style

035 | 036

78. Qiyi Gu, ‘Zhongguo Jianzhu Zhi Guoqu Ji Jianglai (Xu) [The History and the Future of Chinese Architectures (Continuation)]’, The China Times , 10 September 1931, Section II, p. 4.

79. Qiyi Gu, ‘Zhongguo Jianzhu Zhi Guoqu Ji Jianglai [The History and the Future of Chinese Architectures]’, The China Times , 20 August 1931, Section II, p. 4.

80. Feng Tan, ‘Lun Jianzhu Xingshi [The Style of a Building]’, The China Times , 26 July 1933, Section III, p. 4.

technologies, and was based on the culture of China.78 The traditional timber frame architecture, he claimed, was structurally similar to the modern skeleton.79 Thus, he managed to promote modernism in China by illustrating its continuity with the local architectural system. In the following years, the wish to create a new style combining the spirit of the East and techniques of the West but was neither the mimicry of classicalism nor the imitation of traditionalism was emphasised by different architects and groups in newspapers and journals. It almost became a consensus of that period, while the criticism on the Chineserenaissance architectures with conventional pitched roof appeared along with its construction committed by the government.80 In an article introducing the world modern movement in The Chinese Architects in 1934, Chinese architect Lizheng He outlined his own principles:

I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII.

Architecture should be based on function.

Form follows the function.

The structure should be practical.

The structure should be clearly presented.

Plans should be prior to the façade.

Show the essence of the materials.

Colours should be used instead of ornaments for

Chapter 2 | The Threshold of Modernism in Shanghai

decoration. 81 With these words, Chinese architects laid down the ideological foundation of Sino-modernism. These manifestos formed the cumulative tendencies as constituent facts of the era and, finally, met the heyday of the Chinese modernist movement.

Additionally, the relationship between the architect and engineer in Shanghai was as distinct from that in Europe.

The engineers in Europe managed to eliminate the privilege of the architects with their numerous innovations and eventually reintegrated with the architects.82 On contrast, engineers in Shanghai ruled the realm of architecture in the early stages. It was not merely that the first foreign architects who came to Shanghai were de facto engineers, but many of the early local architects also had an engineering background.83 The strong position of the engineer forced the architects to take science and function into consideration from the very beginning.

This also contributed to the development of Sinomodernism.84

81. Lizheng He, ‘Xiandai Jianzhu Gaishu [A Brief to Modern Architecture]’, The Chinese Architect , 2, 8 (1934), 46-50 (pp. 4950).

82. Giedion, pp. 211-218.

83. Denison and Ren, pp.

50-52.

Wang and Hui, pp. 594596.

84. Yi-fan Yang, 'Zhongguo Jinxiandai Jianzhu Lishi Zhong De Zhezhong Zhuyi Sichao - "Zhongguo Shi" Jianzhu Zhi Wo Jian [The Eclectic Nature of Architecrure in Modem China: The discussion about "Chinese Style of Architecture"]‘, in Zhongguo Jindai

JIanzhu Yanjiu Yu Baohu Qi [Study and Preserva-

tion of Chinese Modern Architecture VII], ed. by Fu-he Zhang (Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2010), pp. 104-115 (pp.

107-110).

037 | 038

The Notions of Modernity Came into Practice

85. Xiaoming Zhu, ‘Jianzao Benyuan: Yuan Shanghai Gongbuju Zhoushan Lu Caichang Jianzhu Bijiao Yanjiu [Original Construction: A Comparative Study of the Original Shanghai Municipal Council Chusan Road Public Market]’, Shidai Jianzhu [Time + Architecture], 2 (2015), 110-117 (pp. 112-114).

86. Fuquan Xi, ‘Shanghai Shibao Guan [Building of Shanghai Times]’, The Chinese Architect , 28 (1937), 28.

87. Shunsheng Xue and Chenghao Lou, Lao

Shanghai Jingdian Gongyu [The Apartment

Building of Old Shanghai] (Shanghai: Tongji University Press, 2005), p.

100.

Architecture applying modernism language appeared no later than the appearance of the discussion for a new style in Shanghai. A series of standardised public markets committed by the Municipal Council since 1928 had shown a strong tendency towards modernism with a flatslab structure and horizontal windows recalling the Boots D10 Factory in Nottingham (Fig. 23).85 In the mid-1930s, more projects showed a simplified form with a flat roof, ranging from social houses to theatres. The refurbishment of the old buildings, at the same time, had the trend to remove previous ornaments, too (Fig. 24).86 Then, at the practice stage, the movement towards modernism gradually became the constituent facts as well. Among them, there were some exemplary works.

It should be mentioned that many of the works were demolished or refurbished during the past years. The influence of refurbishments is evident in the change of colours of the façade of the former Sacred Heart Vocational College of Girls (Fig. 25). Meanwhile, the extension of the Empire Mansion during the 1980s destroyed its original stepped silhouette.87 Fortunately, the two architectural journals The Builder and The Chinese Architects provided reliable introductions, drawings and

Chapter 3 | The Notions of Modernity Came into Practice

Fig. 26 ▶ Photo of the Hongqiao Sanatorium – its terraced form can be clearly seen in this photo.

According to news on The Shun Pao upon its opening (1934) , the dark part of its façade was red

Fig. 24 Building of Shanghai Times before (left) and after (right) refurbishment – most of the ornaments on the façade were removed

Fig. 23 Foochow Road Market (left) and Seymour Road Market (middle) with standarlized design, showing some modernist feature such as ribbon windows and flat slabs, recalling the Boots D10 Factory (1932) in Nottingham

Fig. 25 Façade of the former Sacred Heart Vocational College of Girls five years ago (left) and the current appearance (right) – the inappropriate renewal of the historic buildings added to the difficulty of evaluating them thoroughly

039 | 040

041 | 042

Fig. 27 The Paimio Sanatorium (1933) designed by Alvar Aalto was considered as a representative of the International Style

Fig. 28 The aerial view of the Hongqiao Sanatorium, showing a singlestorey building separated from the main massing

photos of these buildings. News from the public media on these projects also offered information, such as the colour of the façade that was hardly acquired from the black-and-white images. Moreover, in these years, the government devoted its efforts to restore the original appearance of the historical buildings as well.88 Therefore, a comprehensive evaluation becomes possible.

88. Xiang Lu, ‘Liuzhu Lishi De Yinji, Maichu Weilai De Bufa: Xie Zai Shanghai Xufang (Jituan) Youxian Gongsi Chengli Ershi Zhounian Zhiji [Protect the History Memory and Look forward the Future: Writing before the 20th anniversary of the Xufang Group]’, Xuhui Bao , 20 June 2016, p. 15.

Hongqiao Sanatorium

89. Jean-Bernard Cremnitzer, ‘The Sanatorium in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s‘, in Alvar Aalto

Cremnitzer had provided a unique interpretation of the conceptual innovations in the sanatorium design during the inter-war period. Its impact was far beyond its typology and becoming a source for the modern movement.89 In Shanghai, the Hongqiao Sanatorium designed by Fuquan Xi in 1934 (Fig. 26), though not as epochal as the one Alvar Aalto completed in Paimio (Fig. 27) one year earlier, expressed a clear statement towards modernism as well.

Despite its destruction during World War II, its social and architectural significance during its era left numerous records both in periodicals and public media.90

architect Volume 5: Paimio Sanatorium 192933 , ed. by Mia Hipeli and Esa Laaksonen (Helsinki: Alvar Aalto Foundation, 2015), pp. 113-117 (p.

117).

90. Kan Liu, ‘Danshizhichu: Zhongguo Diyi Dai Jianzhushi Xi Fuquan (19021983 Nian) [A Rare Gem: Fohzien Godfrey Ede (1902-1983) of the First Generation of Chinese Architects]’, Shidai Jianzhu [Time + Architecture], 4 (2019), 154-161 (p. 159).

After World War I, rapid development in the treatment of tuberculosis incredibly changed the design of the sanatorium. The original collective galleries were replaced 043 | 044

Fig. 29 Collective terraces of the Paimio Sanatorium – they were disconnected from the bedrooms and adjoined to the gable wall of the main structure

Fig. 30 Terraced balcony of the Waiblingen Sanatorium (1928) designed by Richard Döcker in Germany

91. Cremnitzer, pp. 113114.

92. [Anon], ‘Jieshao Hongqiao Liaoyangyuan [Introduction of the Hongqiao Sanatorium]’, The Shun Pao , 18 June 1934, p. 16.

93. Teppo Jokinen, ‘Paimio Sanatorium‘, in Alvar Aal-

to architect Volume 5: Paimio Sanatorium 192933 , ed. by Mia Hipeli and Esa Laaksonen (Helsinki: Alvar Aalto Foundation, 2015), pp. 7-43 (p. 7).

94. Cremnitzer, p. 114.

95. Ibid., pp. 116-117.

by a complex of technical space with individualised bedrooms and balconies.91 As the first modern sanatorium operated by the Chinese in Shanghai, the Hongqiao Sanatorium was as well-equipped as European inter-war institutes, leaving the same challenge to Xi as his peers in Europe.92 However, compared with the layout of the design of Aalto with a group of separated building masses accommodating different functions, the design of Xi was more similar to its continental European contemporaries, compressing most the facilities into one regular block, except for a small single-storey building (Fig. 28).93 Its terraced southern façade with connected balconies and bedrooms, at the same time, echoed one of the European sanatorium prototypes preferred by modernist pioneers during that period.94 The Paimio Sanatorium, on the contrary, disconnected the balconies from the bedrooms for climatic reasons (Fig. 29).95 The German architect, Richard Döcker, contributed most to the development and dissemination of the terraced layout. Apart from realised cases such as the Waiblingen Sanatorium (Fig. 30), he considered the terrace-solarium system as a universal solution for different building programmes in his book Terrassentyp and provided a variety of models (Fig.

Chapter 3 | The Notions of Modernity Came into Practice

Fig. 31 Compared typologies of sanatorium in Richard Döcker’s book Terrassentyp (1929) – the single-loaded corridor system placed a dilemma between shrinking the depth of the upper-floor rooms and introducing a cantilevered structure

31).96 Nevertheless, the European tended to design an overhanging northern façade to create an average depth for the rooms on different levels, resulting in a series of technical, functional and economic problems.97 Conversely, Xi attached technical spaces such as the operating theatre and light-treatment rooms, along with facilities such as offices and toilets, to the back of the patient rooms on the lower levels on the other side of the main corridor (Fig. 32).

This optimisation made the northern façade a vertical plane and the patient rooms in the same depth as well. Thus, the design also met the critical functional requirement of minimising the movement of medical staff.98 Although the Hongqiao sanatorium had a much smaller scale (with its capacity of around 100 patients) than ones like Paimio, it was an exemplary prototype because it combined form, structure and function.99

96. Cremnitzer, p. 114.

97. Ibid., pp. 114-115.

98. Ibid., p. 114.

99. Kan Liu, p. 158.

100. Jokinen, p. 14.

Apropos of the arrangement of circulation, the Hongqiao Sanatorium (Fig. 33) shared more similarities with the Paimio one (Fig. 34). In Paimio, the entrance section served for the vertical circulation between different floors via the lifts and main staircase, and horizontal traffic between the A-wing and B-wing.100 In the Hongqiao sanatorium, Xi created two volumes of different sizes intersecting at the 045 | 046

Fig. 32 Section of the Hongqiao Sanatorium – additional rooms were attached to the back of the building on the lower level, creating a double-loaded corridor system.

These rooms were used for technical space and other facilities, improving the space efficiency of the building

101. Jokinen, p. 14.

102. Ibid., p. 9.

103. Huikang Ding, ‘Hongqiao Liaoyangyuan Jianzhu Zhi Qidian Ji Jingguo [The Start Point and the Process of the Construction of Hongqiao Sanatorium]’, The Shun Pao , 1 January 1934, p. 24.

104. Jokinen, p. 18.

Alvar Aalto, ‘Architect Alvar Aalto: Paimio Sanatorium‘, in Alvar

Aalto architect Volume 5: Paimio Sanatorium 192933 , ed. by Mia Hipeli and Esa Laaksonen (Helsinki: Alvar Aalto Foundation, 2015), pp. 66-69 (p. 68).

vertical circulation shaft and the main hall on the ground floor. In both cases, the traffic core was emphasised with a protrusion on the façade. In the Hongqiao sanatorium, all the standard patient rooms were in the bigger volume, connected by a corridor. An emergency stair was at the end of the corridor, like the design of Aalto.101 However, as previously mentioned, the two volumes in Xi’s design were de facto one regular block, then the clear division of function associated with the internal traffic disappeared.

The small volume, according to the original drawing published in The Chinese Architects , was occupied with patient rooms, too, but an upgraded type with the private bathroom. Nonetheless, the roof terrace, a feature Teppo Jokinen considered was characteristic in the building in Paimio, can also be found in the one in Shanghai.102 Moreover, Xi provided detailed design for the physical and psychological benefit of the patients as well. The library and patients’ hobby room, which were considered conducive to the treatment and introduced into Paimio, appeared in Hongqiao as well.103 In the bedroom, aside from the heating systems and electric appliances, Xi had a parallel perspective towards a patient-friendly environment with Aalto.104 He used sound-absorbing

Chapter 3 | The Notions of Modernity Came into Practice

Fig. 33 Plans of the Hongqiao sanatorium 1. Main Hall 2. Patient Bedrooms 3. Reception 4. Main Staircase 5. Emergency Staircase 6. Doctors’ Apartments 7. Offices 8. Operating theatre 9. Light-treatment Rooms

Fig. 34 Paimio Sanatorium (1933) site plan – A-wing and B-wing was connected by the entrance lobby

047 | 048

Fig. 35 Main staircase of the Paimio Sanatorium – its linoleum colour was a part of Aalto’s sign system

105. Ding, p. 24.

106. Jokinen, pp. 14-18.

107. Ding, p. 24.

108. [Anon], Introduction of

the Hongqiao Sanatorium .

109. Jokinen, p. 40.

materials for the flooring, concealing all the pipes and cables through the shafts in the wall. Besides, the corners of the walls were rounded for the convenience of cleaning, aiming for a more hygienic space.105 Aalto’s colour scheme (Fig. 35) as a sign system was also applied

by Xi.106 The report of Huikang Ding on The Shun Pao before its opening had illustrated that Xi used pale green in the main hall, grey in the operation room and linoleum in the dining hall.107 Similar to all the designers for a sanatorium, Xi managed to maximise the natural light into the room; and simultaneously, he also arranged the design of the terraced balconies carefully, so that

People on the upper balconies are unable to see anything on the lower floor [...] thus, the terrace becomes an excellent area to relax. 108 The Hongqiao Sanatorium, as the Paimio one, emphasised the technical and functional aspects of the building.

However, the more or less subconscious modernist aesthetic implied in Aalto’s design appeared in the case in Shanghai too.109 Instead of symmetric form, the architecture achieved regularity via its repetitive rhythm of fenestration. Also, it achieved a dynamic balance between the smaller but more solid volume and the bigger, terraced volume. Besides, its Chapter 3 | The Notions of Modernity Came into Practice

Fig. 36 Balconies of the Hongqiao Sanatorium – the terraced structure and the “ship’s” metal railing contributed to its modernist style

Fig. 37 Fuquan Xi during his study in Germany – the oversea educational background forged his taste on modernism

metal railings formed a horizontal band on the balconies, and the elimination of the capping of walls and other ornaments all added to the consistency of the aesthetic principles of the Hitchcock-defined International Style (Fig. 36).110 News of the opening of the Hongqiao Sanatorium on The Shun Pao confirmed that its façade was coloured with white and red.111 The use of the primary colours, on the other hand, coincided with the colour scheme of the De Stijl movement.112 Therefore, the Hongqiao Sanatorium was modernistic both morphologically and essentially, underlying the achievement of Chinese architects towards architectural modernity.

110. Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson,

The International Style

(London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1995), pp. 8184.

111. [Anon], ‘Hongqiao Liaoyangyuan Zuori Kaimu, Wu Shizhang Juxing Kaimu Dianli [The Hongqiao Sanatorium opened yesterday, while Mayor Wu Hosted the Ceremony]’, The Shun Pao , 18 June 1934, p. 11.

112. Frampton, p. 144.

113. Kan Liu, p. 157.

The making of this Sino-modernist masterpiece can be at least partially attributed to the educational background of its architect. Fuquan Xi (Fig. 37), the designer of the sanatorium, acquired his architectural education in Germany. He got his diploma in architecture at Technische Universität Darmstadt in 1926 and received a doctoral degree in engineering at Technische Hochschule ze Charlottenburg.113 Xi’s preference towards rational modernism was evident in an article written during his study – About the Building and Construction Industry in Our Country . In this text, he called for the comprehensive modernity of Chinese architecture and criticised the 049 | 050

114. Kan Liu, pp. 157-158.

eclecticism architecture in China. His architectures, Kan Liu suggested, was influenced by the modern movement in Germany, while the impact was apparent in the case of Hongqiao sanatorium.114 Empire Mansion

115. Xue and Lou, The

Apartment Building of Old Shanghai , p. 100.

116. Shanghai Xuhui District Tourism Service Centre, Enpaiya Gongyu [Empire Mansions] (Shanghai: Shanghai Xuhui District Tourism Service Centre, n.d.) <http://www.qjtrip. com/info/ShowDetail.aspx?Id=2943 > [accessed 3 January 2020].

117. Ibid.

Besides their foreign-trained peers, architects who had a domestic education background also participated in the Chinese modern movement. Most of them, as aforementioned, received a civil engineering education.

Among them, Yuanji Huang and his Empire Mansion provided a sound example towards modernism (Fig. 38).

It should be mentioned that two additional floors were added to the wings of the Empire Mansion for the housing shortage in 1985 and destroyed its early silhouette.115 Meanwhile, the change of the colour of its façade from white to dark brown in the 1990s also added to the damage to its original design.116 However, the restoration in the 2000s has brought the original façade back.117 Moreover, fortuitously, the periodical The Chinese Architects in 1935 offered records of the building upon its completion. The comparative analysis between the primary sources and current building situation could

Chapter 3 | The Notions of Modernity Came into Practice

Fig. 38 ▶ Past and present of the Empire Mansion – the refurbishment during the 1980s added two additional storeys to the wings and one to the central volume

contribute to an in-depth insight into this architecture.

Shunsheng Xue and Chenghao Lou have stated that the building’s architect, Huang, was a civil engineering graduate of Nanyang Road and Mining School in Shanghai and a draftsman of the Shanghai Municipal Council.118 Compared to Fuquan Xi, Huang was an utterly local architect in Shanghai. However, his experiences as a civil engineering student and draftsman for public architecture may have forged his taste on modernism unconsciously. The edifice, meanwhile, is distinguished for its appearance on the corner of the former Avenue Joffre (now Middle Huaihai Road) through the years, standing as an exemplary illustration of the early modern apartment building in this far-east city.

118. Shunsheng Xue and Chenghao Lou, Shang-

hai Bainian Jianzhushi He Yingzaoshi [The Archi-

tects and Constructors in Shanghai during the Last Hundred Year] (Shanghai: Tongji University Press, 2011), p. 71.

119. F. R. S. Yorke and Frederick Gibberd, The Modern Flat , 2nd edn (London: The Architectural Press, 1948), pp.

6-11.

120. Xue and Lou, The

Apartment Building of Old Shanghai , p. 2.

Multi-storey apartment buildings catering to modern requirements, as F. R. S. Yorke and Frederick Gibberd suggested, newly emerged in Europe in the first decades of the 20th century. They not only met contemporary living standards but also contained units customised for various types of residents, from one individual to parents with children.119 This new building type was introduced to Shanghai via international communication in the 1920s along with the booming real estate speculation.120 Although the Empire Mansion was doubtlessly a housing 051 | 052

053 | 054

Fig. 39 Six types of modern housing in Roger Sherwood’s Modern Housing Prototypes (1978) – detached and semi-detached housing, rowhousing, partywall housing, block housing, slabs and towers. It was based on their building form and density

121. Congzhou Chen and Ming Zhang, Shanghai

Jindai Jianzhu Shigao

[Modern Architectural History of Shanghai] (Shanghai: SDX Joint Publishing Company, 1988), p. 186.

Yorke and Gibberd, p.

51.

National Heritage Institute of Czech Republic ,

Činžovní Dům Skleněný Palác [Glass Palace

Apartment Building] (Prague: The Monuments Catalog, n.d.) < https:// pamatkovykatalog.cz/ uskp/podle-relevance/1/ seznam/?katCislo=1000152536> [accessed 3 January 2020].

project based on imported prototypes, it was a practice attributed to the architect’s intelligence as well.

In Modern Housing Prototypes , Roger Sherwood provided a category of modern dwellings based on building form and density from detached houses to towers (Fig. 39).

It is difficult to classify the Empire Mansion into any of these listed groups. However, based on its pattern and circulation, the edifice was literally two intersected slabs on the street corner. The Empire Mansion was more than a plain residential building. Shops occupied the ground floor, and all the flats were set on the upper floor. This typology was popular in the built-up area of Shanghai for speculative consideration, and the functionalist apartment, Skleněný Palác in Prague (Fig. 40), built two years later, is a similar case in Europe.121 Besides the similarities in layout and programmes, Huang responded to the site in the form of the building paralleled with Richard Ferdinand Podzemný, the designer of the Prague apartment. Facing the intersection, both buildings have a stepped silhouette with a higher central part with the main entrance and two lower wings. Nonetheless, Huang’s emphasis on the central part was more evident. The middle volume of the Empire Mansion was six floors before the refurbishment

Chapter 3 | The Notions of Modernity Came into Practice

Fig. 41 Vertical structures on the façade of the Empire Mansion’s central volume – they led the eye up to the roof, emphasising its height

Fig. 40 Skleněný Palác (1937) designed by Richard Ferdinand Podzemný in Prague – this functionalist housing was on the list of cultural landmarks of Czech

during the 1980s, and the wings were four floors. The vertical line above the main entrance strengthened its stepped form as well (Fig. 41).122 Apropos of the Skleněný Palác, it was a seven-storey middle part with two six-storey wings. Nevertheless, the flat roof and garden terrace were introduced to the two projects, which added to modernist characteristics to the architecture.123

122. Xue and Lou, The

Apartment Building of Old Shanghai , p. 100.

123. Yorke and Gibberd, p.

51.

124. Roger Sherwood,

Modern Housing Prototypes (Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press, 1978), p. 18.

125. Ibid.

In his book, Sherwood gave classifications of different units and circulation types as well. From these aspects, on the contrary, the two projects showed manifest differences.

Though both cases inserted lifts for vertical circulation, Podzemný applied a multiple vertical access system with each staircase and an adjoining lift serving two units per floor (Fig. 42). This access system, Sherwood claimed, was popular in Europe before World War II, and Podzemný was unquestionably influenced by the trend.124 With this circulation system, all the apartments in the Skleněný Palác were open-ended, double-orientation units, provided residents with the view of the street as well as the courtyard. However, the drawback of this design was also apparent. That was, as Sherwood suggested, the expense of repeating lifts.125 Regarding the Empire Mansion, Huang designed a single-loaded corridor system through the 055 | 056

Fig. 42 Typical upper floor plan of the Skleněný Palác, illustrations of doubleorientation units and multiple vertical access systems in Sherwood’s book – five groups of stairs and lifts served in this building

Fig. 43 Typical upper floor plan of the Empire Mansion, illustrations of singleorientation units and singleloaded corridor systems in Sherwood’s book – two lifts were in the central volume and served every floor via corridors; with additional staircases connecting different levels of the wings

Chapter 3 | The Notions of Modernity Came into Practice

Fig. 44 Section of the Narkomfin Apartment (1928) in Moscow – the skip-stop corridors and two-level apartments made it one of the most innovative housing projects in the 20th century

central volume and two wings (Fig. 43). Thus, different methods of vertical circulation were set in different areas but integrated by horizontal traffic – two lifts mainly served the central volume, while staircases connected levels of the wings. Moreover, compared with those European cases such as the Narkomfin Apartment in Moscow with skip-stop corridors and two-level units (Fig. 44), Huang’s apartment was relatively simple.126 He arranged the corridor at the back of the building of each floor. Therefore, all the flats are one-level, single-orientation units facing the street.

However, Huang created a series of units from one-room to four-room flats based on this simple layout, catering to various types of modern families.127

126. Sherwood, pp. 118119.

127. Xue and Lou, The

Apartment Building of Old Shanghai , p. 100.

128. Yuanji Huang, ‘Shanghai Xiafei Lu Enpaiya Dasha [Empire Mansion on Avenue Joffre, Shanghai]’, The Chinese Architect , 3, 4 (1935), 3-13 (p. 4).

129. Xue and Lou, The

Apartment Building of Old Shanghai , p. 100.

Yuanji Huang, p. 4-9.

Furthermore, the Empire Mansion was equipped based on the contemporary living standard. An introduction on The Chinese Architect illustrated that aside from lifts, the building also provided modern communal services such as central heating and air conditioning systems.128 Each flat in the building had an independent bathroom and kitchen with electrical appliances, and some of them were lit and ventilated by the lightwell.129 The Empire Mansion was, without question, a functionally modernised dwelling akin to projects designed by European modernist 057 | 058

130. Frampton, pp 136-137.

131. Shanghai Xuhui District Tourism Service Centre, Empire Mansions .

Gilbert Lupfer and Paul Sigel, Walter Gropius

1883-1969: Propagandist der Neuen Form

(Köln: Taschen, 2019), p.

71.

132. Carsten Krohn, Walter

Gropius: Buildings and Projects , trans. by Julian

Reisenberger (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2019), p. 110.

Ingeborg Junge-Reyer,

Housing Estates in the Berlin Modern Style: Nomination for Inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List

(Paris: UNESCO World Heritage Centre, 2006), p. 51.

133. Hitchcock and Johnson, p. 71.

134. Junge-Reyer, p. 51.

pioneers.130 Huang’s treatment of the façade, at the same time, coincide with Walter Gropius and his works in the Siemensstadt Housing Development project near Berlin.

Compared with Gropius’s conventional brick buildings, the Empire Mansion had a reinforced-concrete structure.131 Nonetheless, pillars were exposed on the façade in both cases and disrupted the horizontality of the architecture. In Berlin, Gropius clad the pillars with dark bricks and created an impression of horizontal window bands stand out from the white façade (Fig. 45).132 Huang approached further with this method. Using a group of dark brick-clad piers, he produced an illusion of ribbon windows going through the building (Fig. 46). The horizontality of the building, like the Berlin project, was emphasised by the whitepainted walls, echoing with Hitchcock’s International Style aesthetics.133 Other features like the steel-frame windows in Siemensstadt also appeared in the Empire Mansion, making it the monument of modernism.134 Villa of D. V. Woo Foreign architects, who however had their major practices in Shanghai, contributed to the making of Sino-modernism

Chapter 3 | The Notions of Modernity Came into Practice

Fig. 45 East façade of Walter Gropius’s Siemensstadt Housing Development project (1930) – the dark brick cladding created an impression of horizontal window bands on the white façade

Fig. 46 Façade of the Empire Mansion – Huang used the same technique same to Gropius’s and produced an illusion of ribbon windows going through the building

059 | 060

Fig. 47 Architect Arthur Kruze – he became the partner of Alexandre Leonard and Paul Veysseyre in 1933 and marked their transition towards modernism

135. Xue and Lou, The

Architects and Constructors in Shanghai , pp.

146-149.

136. Xiaohong Hua, Shanghai Hudec Architecture , trans. by Michelle Qiao (Shanghai: Tongji University Press, 2013), pp. 2122.

137. Ibid., p. 17.

138. Ibid., pp. 9, 23-24.

as well. European architects arriving in Shanghai during the early 1930s, Arthur Kruze from France (Fig. 47), for example, were prominent promoters of the new trend.135 Meanwhile, those who had been in Shanghai long before the climax of the European modern movement also showed a transition towards modernism during the thirties. The Hungarian-Slovak architect László Hudec (Fig. 48) belonged to the latter group. According to the chronology, he spent most of his time in Shanghai since 1918, except for the travel back to Europe in 1921 and to America in 1929.136 In the introduction of a guidebook of Hudec’s works in Shanghai, Xiaohong Hua claimed that the modernist lexicon in his architects was superficial:

Hudec always respected the needs of his clients.

His innovative and diversified styles were mainly to serve his clients rather than lead a revolution on the conceptions or cast a deep thought on social transition. 137 Nevertheless, the prevalence of modernist style in his later works and his delicate composition of modernist features implied the development of Sino-modernism in the mid1930s.138 Not only had the society embraced modernism, but theories and practices in Shanghai also facilitated a Chapter 3 | The Notions of Modernity Came into Practice

Fig. 48 Architect László Hudec – he was one of the most influential architects in Shanghai during the inter-war period

collective local modern movement think tank as design references for architects like Hudec. His design of the Grand Theatre in 1933 (Fig. 49) shared similar features with the Czechoslovak pavilion in the 1937 Paris Expo (Fig. 50). Considering Hudec’s Slovakian origin, and the pavilion as a modernist masterpiece of the new country in Cohen’s text, it was an intriguing coincidence.139 Apropos of the Villa of D. V. Woo (Fig. 51), after 28 months of construction, Shanghai had already been under the war when it was completed in 1938. Nonetheless, it received international attention upon its completion and experienced detailed restoration between 2012 and 2014 as the monument of modernism in Shanghai.

139. Cohen, p. 258.

140. Simon Unwin, Twen-

ty-five Buildings Every Architect Should Understand , 2nd edn (New York: Routledge, 2015), p. 137.

Jacques Sbriglio, Le Corbusier: The Villa Savoye , trans. by Sarah

Parsons (Berlin: Birkhäuser, 2008), pp. 37-40.

Compared with the Villa Savoye (Fig. 52), the masterwork of the modern movement in Europe, Hudec's architecture was noticeably distinct in layout and form. This difference was deeply rooted in their site. The Villa Savoye stood in the centre of a vast meadow on a hilltop. Thus, Le Corbusier created “a box in the air” with four similar, however considerably different white façades with strip windows in them.140 The villa of Woo, conversely, occupied the southwestern corner of the intersection of Avenue Road (now West Beijing Road) and Hardoon Road (now Tongren Road), 061 | 062

Fig. 49 Grand Theatre (1933) designed by Hudec – its modern style had made it a tourist attraction since its completion

Fig. 52 The Villa Savoye (1931) – an icon of the modern movement

Fig. 50 Czechoslovak Pavilion in the Paris Expo (1937) designed by Jaromír Krejcar – modern forms were considered as an expression of national identity

Chapter 3 | The Notions of Modernity Came into Practice

063 | 064

065 | 066

Fig. 51 ◀ Past and present of the Villa of D. V. Woo – the restoration between 2012 and 2014 brought its original appearance back

Fig. 53 Site plan of the Villa of D. V. Woo – different from the Villa Savoye, this house was at the intersection of Avenue Road and Hardoon Road, the centre of French Concession 141. Lvwu Fuxing [Rebirth of the Green House], ed. by Gaomin Fan and Zhenhua Yao (Shanghai: Xuelin Press, 2016), p. 12.

142. Sbriglio, pp. 53-60, 6265.

143. Ibid., p. 68.

144. Le Corbusier, The

City of Tomorrow and Its Planning , trans. by

Frederick Etchells (New York: Payson & Clarke Ltd., 1929; repr. New York: Dover Publications, 1987), pp. 184-186.

Le Corbusier, Urbanisme (Paris: Les Editions G. Crès & Cie, 1925; repr.

Paris: Champs Arts, 1994), p. 174.

surrounded by the crowded city (Fig. 53).141 Hudec then designed an asymmetrical volume along Avenue Road to the north of the site with a private garden to the south. Instead of an enclosed box providing a skin-deep simplicity, his architecture celebrated its complexity on its south façade.

The large glazed wall revealing the interior and the terraced platform with “ship’s” railing made the villa a reversal of the one in Poissy and a rearrangement of those modernist features.142 The north façade integrated with the perimeter wall was relatively solid (Fig. 54). The strip window was introduced by Hudec to this façade but set almost above eye level (Fig. 55). It was markedly different from the Villa Savoye, which used ribbon windows offering views of the landscape.143 Rather, it accorded with Adolf Loos’s aesthetics, as cited in Le Corbusier’s Urbanisme :

A friend (Loos) once said to me, "No intelligent man ever looks out of the window; his window is made of ground glass; its only function is to let in light, not to look out of." 144 Bedsides, the fenestration of the north façade may be a response to the site – it can keep the privacy of its residents from the street.

Chapter 3 | The Notions of Modernity Came into Practice

Fig. 54 North façade of the Villa of D. V. Woo – compared with the south façade, it was more solid with several strip windows

Fig. 55 Strip windows of the north façade – these windows above eye level could only let in light

Although the circulation system and programme of the two cases seemed to be significantly different, they shared some essential similarities. One of the features that made the two villas modern housing was their adaption for the automobile. Le Corbusier considered the car access as a “fundamental requisite” for the Villa Savoye and set the garage in the centre of the plan with a direct connection to the entrance hall (Fig. 56).145 In the villa of Woo, the motor access went through the centre of the ground floor, cutting the plan into two parts (Fig. 57). Therefore, the owner and guests could reach most of the area of the ground floor upon getting out of the car. The passage was the boundary of the programmes as well. The south part was the social area with a bar and a billiard room, while the north section was relatively private, with an ancestor hall in the centre. Different from Le Corbusier’s distribution of masters’ and servants’ space on separated floors, Hudec allocated servant accommodations and service core on the same floor with living area.146 However, he kept the intimate realm of the dwellings similarly. The service quarter was self-contained, with an isolated circulation via the independent staircase in the centre of the area (Fig. 58).147 The dining room and

145. Sbriglio, pp. 38, 53.

146. Ibid., pp. 50-53.

147. Fan and Yao, p. 8.

067 | 068

Fig. 56 Ground-floor plan of the Villa Savoye – the garage occupied a large part of the ground floor with a direct connection to the entrance hall

Fig. 57 Ground-floor plan of the Villa of D. V. Woo – the car access in the centre cut the ground floor into two parts based on their programmes

Chapter 3 | The Notions of Modernity Came into Practice

Fig. 58 Firstfloor plan of the Villa of D. V. Woo – the service quarter had its independent staircases to create an isolated circulation

living room were next to the service zone; therefore, it remained convenient. Moreover, the hierarchy of different circulation systems in the Villa Savoye had a counterpart in the villa of Woo. The main staircase (Fig. 59) provided a relatively rapid and destabilising sensation of movement like the spiral stairs in the Villa Savoye.148 In addition, the lift offered an accelerated vertical movement with the help of modern technology. The outdoor staircase on the boundary of nature and the domestic life behind the glazing (Fig. 60) also functioned as the ramp in the Villa Savoye. It constantly offered changing perspectives from the garden and through the terraces and made the Villa of D. W. Woo a Le Corbusier-called promenade architecturale , similar to the masterpiece in Poissy.149

148. Sbriglio, pp. 55.

149. Ibid., p. 53.

150. Ibid., p. 77.

The façade of the villa of Woo was clad in green and pale-yellow tiles (Fig. 61), contrasted with the uniform white painting (except for the dark-green sidewalls of the ground floor) of the Villa Savoye (Fig. 62). The reason for the utilisation of green differed from the reason in the Villa Savoye as well. Le Corbusier used the darkgreen to match the lawn, while the green of the villa of Woo was the result of a compromise to the owner.150 Woo considered green as his lucky colour for his success 069 | 070

Fig. 59 Main staircase of the Villa of D. V. Woo – the access for the owners and guests

Fig. 61 Green and pale-yellow tiles for façades of the Villa of D. V. Woo – the colour scheme was a compromise to the owner

Fig. 60 Outdoor staircase of the Villa of D. V. Woo – it connected the terraces and created changing perspectives

Fig. 62 North-east façade of the Villa Savoye – the sidewall was painted in dark-green to match the lawn

Chapter 3 | The Notions of Modernity Came into Practice

Fig. 63 Former dining room of the Villa of D. V. Woo – the marble dining table, parquet flooring and carpet can be clearly seen in this photo

Fig. 64 Interior of the Villa Müller (1930) – compared with the purism of the Villa Savoye, it expressed the cultural conception of the upper-middle class

in the dye business with the army.151 The interior with marble, travertine, terrazzo and parquet flooring (Fig. 63) was more similar to the Villa Müller (Fig. 64) catering on bourgeois aesthetics rather than the purism of the Villa Savoye.152 However, the introduction of modernist features and the programme based on modern living standards made it an icon of modernist architecture in Shanghai. It was the final piece of a picture showing a collective trend towards Sino-modernism attributed to architects from different backgrounds.

151. Fan and Yao, pp. 12, 43.

152. Ibid., pp. 64-93.

August Sarnitz, Adolf Loos 1870-1933: Architect, Cultural Critic, Dandy (Köln: Taschen, 2019), p. 72.

Sbriglio, pp. 58-60.

071 | 072

The Immature Modernism

However, the modern movement in Shanghai did not keep on the same track as in Europe. Its practices were constantly shaded by a stronger nationalism ideology than European countries, the limited number of welltrained local architects, and the cult of society on eclecticism and gorgeous decoration.

153. Cohen, pp. 212-216.

154. Denision and Ren, p, 111.

155. Yue Huang, Xiaoqian Wang and Jing Zhuge, 'Minguo Shiqi Meiti Shiye Zhong Minzu Jianzhu De Xiandaixing [Modernity of National Architecture from the Perspective of the Media during the Republic Period]‘, in Zhong-

guo Jindai JIanzhu Yanjiu Yu Baohu Jiu [Study and

Preservation of Chinese Modern Architecture IX], ed. by Fu-he Zhang (Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2014), pp. 734-747 (p. 735).

The Dilemma of Nationalism Cohen has illustrated that the traditionalist architects maintained their influence around the world during the inter-war period. The political and economic forces also preferred to show their power via a classicism form. These two factors contributed to the modernity of classicism and an eclectic taste of modernism and traditionalism during the 1930s.153 In Shanghai, as well as in China, the situation was more complicated. The nationwide civil unrest before the establishment of the new republic government in 1927 shaped Chinese citizen’s stand on nationalism.154 The new government, at the same time, promoted nationalism to form the national identity.155 Thus, Chineserenaissance architecture was introduced.

The so-called Chinese-renaissance architecture was primitively promoted by Western individuals and

Chapter 4 | The Immature Modernism

Fig. 65 Ginling College (1921) designed by Murphy & Dana – one of the Christian colleges built in the 1920s with traditional Chinese paradigm

Fig. 66 Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum (1929) designed by Yen-chih Lü – a series of governmentcommissioned Chinese-renaissance constructions were results of nationalism

organisations. For instance, the Indigenous Church Movement called for integration with the local tradition for encouraging patronage. Then, this eclectic style soon prevailed in the design of Christian colleges (Fig. 65).156 Nevertheless, the new republic government shortly became its next advocate. The most important one should be the mausoleum of its founding father, Sun Yatsen, in a traditional Chinese form (Fig. 66).157 Then in the late 1920s, the urban development plan of Nanjing and Shanghai upgraded it into a dominating stage. Hereupon, numerous public projects were built under the idea of using modern materials and techniques to revive the traditional appearance.158 Apropos of Shanghai, one particular case should be the new edifice for the Shanghai

156. Xue Fang and Liehong Feng, 'Yiwei Meiguo Jianzhushi Zai Jindai Zhongguo De Sheji Shijian- Hengli Mofei Zai Zhongguo De Shiyingxing Jianzhu 1914-1935 Pingjie [Restoring Real Murphy: A Book about an American Architect who had been Practiced in Modern China- Building in China: Henry K. Murphy's "Adaptive Architecture", 1914-1935]‘, in Zhongguo Jindai

JIanzhu Yanjiu Yu Baohu Qi [Study and Preserva-

tion of Chinese Modern Architecture VII], ed. by Fu-he Zhang (Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2010), pp. 564-573 (p.

569).

157. Cohen, p. 279.

158. Xiang-wu Meng and Ming-hui Ye, 'Minzu Yishi Zai Zhongguo Jindai Jianzhu Fazhan Zhong De Zuoyong Chuyi [Discussion of the National Conscious' Effect on the Process of Modern Architectural Development in China]‘, in Zhongguo

Jindai JIanzhu Yanjiu Yu Baohu Qi [Study and

Preservation of Chinese Modern Architecture VII], ed. by Fu-he Zhang (Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2010), pp. 116-120 (pp. 117-118).

073 | 074

Fig. 67 Municipal government building (1933) – one of the Chinese-renaissance architectures in the planned city centre of Shanghai

159. Xintang Xu, ‘Shanghai Shizhengfu Xinwu Shuini Ganggu Sheji [The Design of Reinforced Concrete Structure of the Building for Shanghai Government]’, The Chinese Architect , 2, 1 (1934), 65-70.

160. Haiqing Li and Xuemei Fu, 'Xuanze Yu Deshi: Cong Jishu Cengmian Jiantao "Zhongguo Guyou Shi" Jianzhu [Choices and Gain or Loss: A Technological Criticism on Chinese Inherent Architecture]‘, in Zhong-

guo Jindai JIanzhu Yanjiu Yu Baohu San [Study and Preservation of Chinese Modern Architecture III], ed. by Fu-he Zhang (Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2004), pp. 11-26 (pp. 21-24).

161. Li and Fu, p. 24.

Fig. 68 China Aviation Association building (1935) – a combination of modernist fenestration and Chinese balusters and decorations

government, applying the reinforced-concrete truss for its pitched roof (Fig. 67).159 The cost of the Chineserenaissance buildings, as Haiqing Li and Xue-mei Fu claimed, was much higher than those modernist ones.160 Nonetheless, architects and engineers had to obey its principle under the commission of the authorities.

On the other hand, nationalism was popular among architects as well. The idea about the new style, as aforementioned, was consistently associated with fusing the essence of traditional buildings to the modern ones.

They aggressively criticised those massive pitched roofs for their disproportion and inappropriateness. However, having introduced the” Western” plans, structures and materials, they could merely show the essence of oriental by implanting traditional Chinese elements as ornaments of the building. These technically unnecessary decorations and forms drew the modern architecture back to an eclecticism style and, as Li and Fu suggested, made techniques again subordinate to appearance.161 The China Aviation Association building in Shanghai’s intended civic centre, for example, was a Chimera of modernist horizontal windows and simple volumes with conventional decoration and massive masonry façade

Chapter 4 | The Immature Modernism

Fig. 69 Dayu Doon and the model of his house – the architect who designed numerous Chinese-renaissance architectures in Shanghai made his private house in a modernist style

(Fig. 68). The Chinese-renaissance masterplan of the civic centre doubtlessly shaped its design. Withal, its architect, who was responsible for the masterplan as well, Dayu Doon, designed his home in an entirely modernist language (Fig. 69), may reveal the dilemma of Chinese architects between the national and modern narrative.162

162. Liang Zhang, pp. 6667, 72-79.

The Lack of Education

163. Denison and Ren, pp.

20-21.

The failure to create a new style with the essence of traditional Chinese architecture might have resulted from the lack of a professional architect group. Aside from the long history where Chinese architectural techniques were considered inferior to the fine art, and craftsmen were positioned lower than intellectuals and bureaucrats, the modernisation in architecture was slow and unsystematic.163 The first generation of modern skilled workers were autodidacts. New skills and techniques such as concrete mixing were acquired from the practice and spread by oral instruction.164 Moreover, it was not until 1925 that the first vocational school began to provide architecture education in Suzhou, near Shanghai.165 Afterwards, it was restructured into the faculty of architecture and engineering of the Central University in Nanjing.166 The architecture school of Northeast University, meanwhile, was forced to Shanghai

164. Wang and Hui, p. 592.

165. Xian-jue Liu, 'Ruhe Jixu Jinxing Zhongguo Jindai Jianzhu Shi De Yanjiu [How to Research Chinese Early Modern Architectural History Continuously]‘, in Zhong-

guo Jindai JIanzhu Yanjiu Yu Baohu Er [Study and Preservation of Chinese Modern Architecture II], ed. by Fu-he Zhang (Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2001), pp. 11-16 (p. 14).

166. [Anon.], ‘Zhongyang Daxue Jianzhu Gongcheng Xi Xiaoshi [The History of the Faculty of Architecture and Engineering of the Central University]’, The Chinese Architect , 1, 2 (1933), 34.

075 | 076

167. Yuanzhao Huang,

Zhongguo Jindai Jianzhu Gangyao (1840-1949 Nian) [Outline of Chinese Architecture of Modern Times] (Beijing: China Architecture & Building Press, 2015), p. 170.

168. Chinese Society of Architects, ‘Zhongguo Jianzhu Zhanlanhui Cheng Xingzhenyuan Jiang Yuanzhan Wen [The Petition to Primier Chiang from the China Architecture Exhibition]’, The Builder , 4, 3 (1936), 9-10 (p. 9).

169. Jing Li, ‘20 Shiji Shangbanye Jianzhu Chuangzuo Yu Gudai Jianzhu Shi Yanjiu Zhi Guanxi [The Relations between the Research of Ancient Chinese Architecture and Architecture Design in the 20th Century]‘, in Zhong-

guo Jindai JIanzhu Yanjiu Yu Baohu Qi [Study and

Preservation of Chinese Modern Architecture VII], ed. by Fu-he Zhang (Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2010), pp. 121-124 (pp. 121-123).

170. Chinese Society of Architects, ‘Zhongguo Jianzhushi Xiehui Huiyuan Lu [The Member List of the Chinese Society of Architects]’, The Chinese Architect , 1, 1 (1932), 3940.

after Japan conquering Manchuria in 1931, continuing their education precariously.167 The feeble domestic architectural education limited the growth of a group of professional architects. As claimed by the architecture association in a petition to the premier in 1936, the nationwide graduates of architecture were less than one hundred per year.168 The limited number of professionals faced difficulties not only in producing abundant theory and methodology for architecture practices towards modernity; but also in conducting comprehensive research on traditional architecture. Thus, the localisation of the new style was stuck in reviving its appearance or coping its motifs, failing to introduce its essence.169 The absence of locally educated architects, on the other hand, entailed the leadership of foreign-trained architects in Shanghai's architectural innovations during the 1920s and 1930s. A member list of the Chinese Society of Architects indicated that eighty per cent of its nationwide members had an overseas-educated background (Fig. 70). When it came to Shanghai-based architects, the percentage was seventy-four.170 It was undeniable that the classical tendency of Beaux-Arts model individuated a

Chapter 4 | The Immature Modernism

Fig. 70 Member list of the Chinese Society of Architects – the majority of its members had an overseas-educated background

077 | 078

Fig. 71 American Architect Henry Murphy – one of the most influential foreign promoters of Chineserenaissance style

171. Chen Zhao, '"Minzu Zhuyi" Yu "Gudian Zhuyi" - Liang Sicheng Jianzhu Lilun Tixi De Maodunxing Yu Beijuxing Zhi Fenxi ["Nationalism" and "Classicism": An Analysis on the Contradiction and Tragedy of the Theoretical System of Liang Sicheng]‘, in Zhongguo

Jindai JIanzhu Yanjiu Yu Baohu Er [Study and

Preservation of Chinese Modern Architecture II], ed. by Fu-he Zhang (Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2001), pp. 77-86 (p. 81).

Cohen, p. 161.

172. Fang and Feng, p. 571.

173. Patricia Bayer, Art Deco

Architecture: Design, Decoration, and Detail from the Twenties and Thirties (London: Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1992), pp. 7-8.

174. Hitchcock and Johnson, p. 57.

good architectural historian even for non-Western culture, and architectural education in China was also based on this system.171 However, this educational experience did not award Chinese architects more advance in the localisation of modern architecture than Western architects such as Henry Murphy (Fig. 71).172 The influence of overseas education, moreover, was beyond the skills and aesthetics of individuals. The background of these architects determined their reception and adoption of different ideas and works. For example, in the architect society’s periodical, The Builders , thirteen of the twenty-five introductions on cases abroad were architectures in the United States (Tab. 3), while sixty-six per cent members of the society were graduated from American universities. The practices during this period revealed the American impact as well: Widely used set-back, terraced silhouettes and vertical lines through façades (Fig. 72), echoing with edifices erected during the 1920s and 1930s in New York.173 Though the stepped silhouettes were originally an adaption for the zoning laws, it was widely accepted by the architects in Shanghai.174

Chapter 4 | The Immature Modernism

Fig. 72 ▶ Other buildings built during the 1930s in Shanghai – vertical lines on the façade and set-back silhouettes werewidely used, however some of them were in a simplified form

Tab. 3 Overseas cases on The Builder – the dominance of American architecture was associated with the educational background of the first generation of Chinese architects

The Prevalence of Kitsch At the same time, the reception of Art Deco and traditionalist motifs resulted from the wide acceptance of kitsch on eclecticism and decoration. Such interest in catering to the popularities was deeply rooted in the national character of Chinese people, as Fuxu Shen and Guoxin Huang suggested:

It is a tradition for Chinese people favouring in ornament, the beams and rafters, ridges and eaves, doors and windows and walls, and balusters of the conventional architectures are all covered with decoration.175 Besides, the rising local bourgeoisie in Shanghai also added to the desire for ornament. They called for a new form to expressing their wealth but eliminating the influence of colonialism.176 Thus, as their America contemporise, the Chinese architects had to compromise with their clients, creating a new eclecticism style catering to the taste of the society, borrowing motifs from modern styles such as Art Deco as well as traditional architectures.177

175. Fuxu Shen and Guoxin Huang, Jianzhu Yishu

Fengge Jianshang: Shanghai Jindai Jianzhu Saomiao [Appreciation of Architect Art: A Glancing at Shanghai's Modern Architecture], (Shanghai: Shanghai Educational Publishing House, 2003), p. 193.

176. Dongqiang Er, ‘"Zhuangshi Yishu" Yundong Zai Shanghai - Er Dongqiang Yishu Gongzuoshi Baogao Yi [Art Deco in Shanghai: Report from Er Dongqiang Art Studio (Part 1)]’, Jianzhu Zhuangshi Cailiao Shijie [Architecture Decoration Culture & Creation], 7 (2006), 6471 (p. 66).

177. Xiao Long and Qi Zhou, 'Guomin Zhengfu Waijiaobu Lishi Tanyuan Yu Xiushan Sheji [The Building of Former Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China]‘, in

Zhongguo Jindai Jianzhu Yanjiu Yu Baohu Wu

[Study and Preservation of Chinese Modern Architecture V], ed. by Fu-he Zhang (Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2006), pp. 563-571 (p.

564).

079 | 080

081 | 082

The End of the First Phase of Sino-modernism

178. Liang Zhang, p. 48.

Zonghao Qian, ‘Shanghai, Art Deco De Chuanru He Liuxing [Shanghai: The Introduction and Distribution of Art Deco]‘, in Di Si Jie Zhongguo

Jianzhu Shixue Guoji Yantaohui Lunwen Ji

[Proceedings of International Conference on Chinese Architectual History IV], ed. by [Anon.]

(Shanghai: Tongji University Press, 2007), pp. 187191 (p. 191).

However, the Shanghai architects kept simplifying these ornaments along with theoretical and practical progress in adopting functionalism and rationalism. No later than the middle of the 1930s, both Chinese-renaissance and Art Deco architecture in Shanghai revealed a tendency to eliminate most of the decoration, showing a form more similar to modernist architecture (Fig. 73).178 It was undeniable that the modern movement in Shanghai was first stimulated by the European pioneers. Nonetheless, it had become an independent trend paralleled with those in Europe through the struggle of Shanghai-based architects against eclectic taste and their desire towards architectural modernity. Moreover, it could be expected that the modern movement in Shanghai will be more prolific if Chinese architects keep their pace.

Withal, after the military conflict in 1932, the second SinoJapanese War bursting in 1937 brought the modern movement in Shanghai a sudden end. Afterwards, though some architects kept their practice in Shanghai, most of them retreated to inner China with the central government. Nonetheless, with the migration of those Shanghai-based architects, the idea and methodology of modernist architecture spread to the inland area of

Chapter 5 | The End of the First Phase of Sino-modernism

Fig. 73 Industrial Material Laboratory at the Institution for Chinese Engineers (1935) – the traditional elements were eliminated into horizontal patterns on the coping and plinths

China, making Shanghai centred modernism true Sinomodernism. The spread of modernism in China, as Yuanzhao Huang claimed, was similar to the introduction of modernism to the United States by European architecture immigrants before World War II.179 From then on, the development of Sino-modernism came into the next phase.

179. Yuanzhao Huang, pp.

567-568.

083 | 084

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by Fu-he Zhang (Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2004), pp. 3-10 Murphey, Rhoads, Shanghai: Key to Modern China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1953) National Heritage Institute of Czech Republic , Činžovní Dům Skleněný Palác [Glass Palace Apartment Building] (Prague: The Monuments Catalog, n.d.) < https://pamatkovykatalog.cz/uskp/podle-relevance/1/ seznam/?katCislo=1000152536> [accessed 3 January 2020] ‘Niuyue Zuixin Gongyu Zhi Shiyang [The Up-to-date Style of Apartment in New York]’, The China Times , 31 January 1931, Section II, p. 4 089 | 090

Qian, Haiping, ‘Yi <Zhongguo Jianzhu> Yu <Jianzhu Yuekan> Wei Ziliaoyuan De Zhongguo Jianzhu Xiandaihua Jincheng Yanjiu [A Study on the Course of Modernization of Chinese Architecture Based on the Information Sourced from the Architecture Journal The Chinese Architect and The Builder in 1930’s]’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Zhejiang University, 2011) Qian, Zonghao, ‘Shanghai, Art Deco De Chuanru He Liuxing [Shanghai: The Introduction and Distribution of Art Deco]‘, in Di Si Jie Zhongguo Jianzhu Shixue Guoji Yantaohui Lunwen Ji [Proceedings of International Conference on Chinese Architectual History IV], ed. by [Anon.] (Shanghai: Tongji University Press, 2007), pp. 187-191 Roth, Alfred, The New Architecture: Presented in 20 Examples , 2nd edn (Erlenbach-Zürich: Éditions D’Architecture, 1946) Sarnitz, August, Adolf Loos 1870-1933: Architect, Cultural Critic, Dandy (Köln: Taschen, 2019) Sbriglio, Jacques, Le Corbusier: The Villa Savoye, trans. by Sarah Parsons (Berlin: Birkhäuser, 2008) Shanghai Xuhui District Tourism Service Centre, Enpaiya Gongyu [Empire Mansions] (Shanghai: Shanghai Xuhui District Tourism Service Centre, n.d.) <http://www.qjtrip.com/info/ShowDetail.aspx?Id=2943 > [accessed 3 January 2020] Sherwood, Roger, Modern Housing Prototypes (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978) Sun, Zongwen, ‘Kexue De Juzhu Wenti: Jianzhu Weisheng Mantan Zhiyi [Living scientifically: Talking about the Hygiene of Housing I]’, The China Times , 26 April 1933, Section III, p. 3 Tan, Feng, ‘Lun Jianzhu Xingshi [The Style of a Building]’, The China Times , 26 July 1933, Section III, p. 4 Tournikiotis, Panayotis, The Historiography of Modern Architecture (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1999) Unwin, Simon, Twenty-five Buildings Every Architect Should Understand , 2nd edn (New York: Routledge, 2015) Bibliography

Vilas, Margaret Van Pelt, ‘Deguo Shengxing Boli Touming Dasha [The Popularity of Glazing Façade Building in Germany]’, trans. by Yu You, The China Times , 20 October 1931, Section II, p. 4 Wang, Baoru, ‘Dushi Jianzhu Yu Pingmin Zhusuo [The Edifice of the Metropolis and the Housing for the Lower Class]’, The China Times , 19 April 1933, Section III, p. 3 Wang, Haoyu, and D.C.K. Hui, ‘Cong Gongjiang Dao Jianzhushi: Zhongguo Jianzhu Chuangzuo Zhuti De Xiandaihua Zhuanbian [From Craftsmen to Architects: The Diversification of the Architectural Profession in Modern China]‘, in Zhongguo Jindai JIanzhu Yanjiu Yu Baohu Si [Study and Preservation of Chinese Modern Architecture IV], ed. by Fu-he Zhang (Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2004), pp. 589-606 Wu, Jiang, Shanghai Bainian Jianzhu Shi 1840-1949 [A History of Shanghai Architecture 1840-1949] (Shanghai: Tongji University Press, 2008) Xi, Fuquan, ‘Shanghai Shibao Guan [Building of Shanghai Times]’, The Chinese Architect , 28 (1937), 28 Xu, Xintang, ‘Shanghai Shizhengfu Xinwu Shuini Ganggu Sheji [The Design of Reinforced Concrete Structure of the Building for Shanghai Government]’, The Chinese Architect , 2, 1 (1934), 65-70 Xue, Shunsheng, and Chenghao Lou, Lao Shanghai Jingdian Gongyu [The Apartment Building of Old Shanghai] (Shanghai: Tongji University Press, 2005) ——, Shanghai Bainian Jianzhushi He Yingzaoshi [The Architects and Constructors in Shanghai during the Last Hundred Year] (Shanghai: Tongji University Press, 2011) Yang, Dehui, ‘Shanghai De Jianzhu: Cong Dushi Shuodao Jiaowai [The Architecture in Shanghai: From Urban to Suburban]’, The China Times , 31 May 1933, Section III, p. 3

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Yang, Yi-fan, ‘Zhongguo Jinxiandai Jianzhu Lishi Zhong De Zhezhong Zhuyi Sichao - “Zhongguo Shi” Jianzhu Zhi Wo Jian [The Eclectic Nature of Architecrure in Modem China: The discussion about “Chinese Style of Architecture”]‘, in Zhongguo Jindai JIanzhu Yanjiu Yu Baohu Qi [Study and Preservation of Chinese Modern Architecture VII], ed. by Fu-he Zhang (Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2010), pp. 104-115 ‘Yingguo Aifolin Xincun [The Evelyn Court in British]’, The Builder , 4, 5 (1936), 21-22 ‘Yingguo Newcastle-Upon-Tyne Zhi Zong Xunbufang, Fayuan Ji Jiuhuohui Lianhe Bangongting [Police Headquarters, Courts and Fire Station, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne]’, The Builder , 3, 11&12 (1935), 17-21 Yorke, F. R. S., and Frederick Gibberd, The Modern Flat , 2nd edn (London: The Architectural Press, 1948) Zhang, Liang, Ordinary Metropolis, Shanghai: A Model of Urbanism (Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Fine Art Publishing House, 2015) Zhao, Chen, ‘”Minzu Zhuyi” Yu “Gudian Zhuyi” - Liang Sicheng Jianzhu Lilun Tixi De Maodunxing Yu Beijuxing Zhi Fenxi [“Nationalism” and “Classicism”: An Analysis on the Contradiction and Tragedy of the Theoretical System of Liang Sicheng]‘, in Zhongguo Jindai JIanzhu Yanjiu Yu Baohu Er [Study and Preservation of Chinese Modern Architecture II], ed. by Fu-he Zhang (Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2001), pp. 77-86 Zhao, Ling, ‘Jianzhu Qikan Yu Jindai Shanghai Zhongguo Zhiye Jianzhushi De Shehui Jiagou [Architectural Periodicals and the Societal Construction of Chinese Professional Architects of Modern Shanghai]‘, in Zhongguo Jindai JIanzhu Yanjiu Yu Baohu Liu [Study and Preservation of Chinese Modern Architecture VI], ed. by Fu-he Zhang (Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2008), pp. 794-803 Zheng, Hongbin, Yong Wu and Peng Peng, ‘Jindai Shanghai Gangjinhunningtu Jianzhu Jishu De Fazhan (1896-1916) [Development of Building Reinforced Concrete Techniques in Modern Shanghai (1896-1916)]’, Gongye Jianzhu [Industrial Construction], 49, 6 (2019), 76–81

Bibliography

‘Zhongyang Daxue Jianzhu Gongcheng Xi Xiaoshi [The History of the Faculty of Architecture and Engineering of the Central University]’, The Chinese Architect , 1, 2 (1933), 34 Zhou, Yuanhe, and Shenyuan Wu, ‘Shanghai Lishi Renkou Yanjiu [Historical Research on Population in Shanghai]’, Fudan Xuebao (Shehui Kexue Ban) [Fudan Journal (Social Sciences Edition)], 4 (1985), 90-99 Zhu, Xiaoming, ‘Jianzao Benyuan: Yuan Shanghai Gongbuju Zhoushan Lu Caichang Jianzhu Bijiao Yanjiu [Original Construction: A Comparative Study of the Original Shanghai Municipal Council Chusan Road Public Market]’,

Shidai Jianzhu [Time + Architecture], 2 (2015), 110-117

093 | 094

Appendix Map of Cases

Appendix A | Map of Cases

095 | 096

Appendix Supplementary Figures of the Field Research

Apartment for Employees of Bank of China Qianshou Lu and Jingqi Wu 1923- 1946, Lane 623, Wanhangdu Rd.

Building of Bank of China Qianshou Lu and Palmer & Turner 1937, No. 23 on the Bund

Appendix B | Supplementary Figures of the Field Research

Empire Mansion Yuanji Huang 1935, No. 1326, Middle Huaihai Rd.

Grand Theatre László Hudec 1933, No. 216, West Nanjing Rd.

Hubertus Court László Hudec 1937, No. 918-928, West Yan'an Rd.

097 | 098

Le Ecole de Remi A. Leonard & P. Veysseyre Architects 1933, No. 200, Yongkang Rd.

Office and Warehouse of Bank of China Qianshou Lu and Jingqi Wu 1935, No. 1040, North Suzhou Rd.

Union Brewery László Hudec 1936, No. 130, Yichang Rd.

Appendix B | Supplementary Figures of the Field Research

Villa of D. V. Woo László Hudec 1938, No. 333, Tongren Rd.

Yafa Apartments Wenzhao Fan 1933, No. 255-267, Wuyuan Rd.

099 | 100

Appendix Glossary

English Avenue Joffre Avenue Road Baoru Wang Broadway Mansions Building of Shanghai Times Central University China Aviation Association Building Chinese Society of Architects Dayu Doon Empire Mansion Seymour Road Foochow Road Fuquan Xi Ginling College Grand Theatre Green Island Cement Company Hardoon Road Appendix C | Glossary

Simplified Chinese

霞飞路（淮海中路）

爱文义路（北京西路）

王 宝如

百老汇大厦（上海大厦） 上海时报馆 中央大学

中国航空协会陈列馆及会所 中国建筑师协会

董 大酉

恩派亚大厦（淮海大楼） 西摩路（陕西北路） 福州路

奚 福泉

金陵女子大学 大光明电影院 青州英坭厂

哈同路（铜仁路）

Hongqiao Sanatorium Huangpu River Hung-chang Li Hwa-Shing Cotton Mill Industrial Material Laboratory at the Institution for Chinese Engineers Jessfield Road Jiangnan Arsenal Jingqi Wu László Hudec Li-long Lizheng He Medhurst Apartments Mercantile Bank Building Messageries Maritime Building Metropole Theatre Municipal Council Nanyang Road and Mining School Northeast University Paramount Hall Park Hotel Picardie Apartments Qianshou Lu Qiyi Gu Huanruo Huang Russo-Chinese Bank

虹桥疗养院 黄浦江

李 鸿章

华新纺织新局

中国工程师学会工业材料试验所​ 极司非尔路（万航渡路） 江南机器制造局

吴 景奇 邬达克 里弄

何 立蒸

麦特赫斯特公寓（泰兴大楼） 恒利银行大楼

法国邮船公司大楼 大上海影戏院 上海工部局

南洋路矿学校 东北大学

百乐门舞厅 国际饭店

毕卡迪公寓（衡山宾馆）

陆 谦受 辜 其一 黄 奂若

华俄道胜银行

101 | 102

Sacred Heart Vocational College of Girls Sassoon House Shanghai Dock and Engineering Company Shanghai Gas Company Shanghai Machinery and Textile Bureau Shanghai Power Company Siwei Court Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum Taiping Rebellion The Builder The China Times The Chinese Architect The Shun Pao Union Assurance Company of Canton Villa of D. V. Woo Yuanji Huang

Appendix C | Glossary

圣心女子职业学校

沙逊大厦（和平饭店） 上海船坞工程有限公司 上海自来火房

上海机器织布局 上海电力公司 四维邨 中山陵

太平天国运动 建筑月刊 时事新报 中国建筑 申报

广东联邦保险公司 吴同文住宅

黄 元吉

103 | 104