THE DISGUISED INTENT: INDIVIDUALIZATION OF MY HOME UNDER THE EMERGENCE OF THE SOCIALIST MARKET ECONOMY
Yifan Shen ARC 134, Comparison: Economy and History November 10, 2021
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The evolution of a building does not end at the moment the construction completes. Instead, its space and form would often be redefined by the users according to their individual needs (Brand 2012). Sometimes, these changes made by the users would be so dramatic that the original design intent would be disguised. My home is an example of this kind of extreme individualization. As the economic environment changed from the planned economy to the socialist market economy in China, the original design could no longer satisfy the needs of the residents. They renovated their own unit catering to their individual needs without a having comprehensive plan. My home was built in 1978, right after the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) (文 化大革命）and just before the Reform and Opening UpOpening Up (since 1978)（改 革开放） in China. The Cultural Revolution was a chaotic era while economic growth was in a stage of stagnation (Pye 1986). The Reform and Opening Up was an economic event in which the Chinese government gradually abandoned the planned economy and embraced the market economy, and foreign capitals were allowed to invest in China. Before the Reform and Opening Up, over 90% of the housing in China was public housing. People would be assigned to a standardized apartment according to their contribution to society. Under the planned economy, the economic status of China was poor. In 1978, the architecture industry was still in favor of the New Socialist Style, guided by principles released by the government during the Cultural Revolution. The New Socialist Style was driven by the intent of “appropriateness, economy, and if possible, beauty.” (Song 2018) Under this circumstance, my home was designed with a minimalist facade, standardized plan, and constructed with the cheapest materials. The building lacked the necessary
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The Bund – 1978 vs 2018. Source: Shanghai Archive
infrastructure, such as air-conditioning system and a gas system. In the forty years of the Reform and Opening Up, the Chinese economy has achieved a significant increase. The simple, standardized design of the original building of my home no longer satisfies the basic living needs of residents. Residents started to individualize their apartments. On the building’s facade, residents made ad hoc operations for infrastructure, such as air conditioner external units or electricity cables. In the building’s plan, residents demolished or added walls to fulfill the programmatic needs of individual families. In this essay, I will examine the individualization of my apartment building caused by the insufficient original design and emergence of the socialist market economy.
The Insufficient Design before the Reform and Opening Up
It is essential to understand the economic environment when my home was built to understand the original design. In the late 1970s, the Cultural Revolution had just ended. Chinese society was recovering from the turbulent revolutionary status. In 1978, Chinese GDP per capita was only 978 USD at constant prices, 22.1% compared to the world average (Cai 2018). According to a survey in the 1970s, over 1.2 million families had no
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house, and approximately 10 million families only had very simple and crowded apartments (Lü, Rowe and Zhang 2001). Shanghai was also not the modern metropolis that we know now. People in Shanghai were in poor living conditions. According to official statistics, at the end of the 1970s, almost no family in Shanghai owned a fridge, a water heater for a shower, or a modern stove. Only 1% of the households had a TV, 1.4% owned a washing machine (Zhu, 1996). The lack of household appliances resulted in low demand for housing infrastructure. When my home was designed, there was no room reserved for installing air conditioners. The government also did not integrate a gas system into the building, as people at that time were burning coal to cook (E 2020). The electricity system was only designed for low capacity. We could see that even in a big city like Shanghai, people were merely having enough food and warm clothing but no modern living system. When we look at the original architectural style of my home, there seems to be a disparity between the architectural intent and residents’ life. While residents were burning coal to cook, the facade of the building represented the modern-looking New Socialist Style. The New Socialist Style emerged during the Cultural Revolution, which aimed to purge traditional culture, including traditional architecture and foreign ideologies “rotting” the Chinese Communist Party (Pye 1986). The ultra-leftist ideology that supported the Cultural Revolution controlled the urban housing development and emphasized extreme economy (Lü, Rowe and Zhang 2001). Under the difficult economic conditions, they proposed the New Socialist Architecture should follow the guiding principles of “appropriateness, economy, and if possible, aesthetic.” (Song 2018) We can refer to the
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cover of the Architecture Journal (建筑学报），which was the official architecture publication in China, to have a glimpse of the New Socialist Architecture. It looks similar to modernist architecture in Europe in the early 20th century in terms of its simple form and minimalist facade. The essential difference was that the New Socialist Style prioritized economy over aesthetics.
Covers of the Architecture Journal 1976 & 1978
In 1978, the preferred architectural style did not change a lot from that during the Cultural Revolution. If we look at the cover of the Architecture Journal in 1978, the featuring housing example looks similar to the one in 1976, which is identical to my home’s original look. From the cover of the Architecture Journal in 1976, we could see the use of prefabricated, standardized panels. My home used the concrete-masonry structure, which was the cheapest option at that time. One worth-mentioning point is that though the housing buildings had four to six floors, most did not have elevators. As a faculty dormitory for Fudan University, the floor plan of my home was also standardized. Within a unit, each floor had three apartments. Each apartment had three bedrooms, one
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bathroom, one kitchen, and one living room. Usually, multiple families would share one apartment instead of occupying the whole apartment. After the Reform and Opening Up, the design intent of standardizing everything and having a minimalist facade could not accommodate the needs of residents anymore. The individualized vernacular addition gradually disguised the original facade and blurred the standardized plan.
The Ad Hoc Operation on the Facade
The Reform and Opening Up Policy significantly improved the living conditions of the Shanghai people. From 1978 to 2015, the GDP per capita increased approximately 30 times (Cai 2018). As early as 1995, every family owned a fridge, a modern stove, and one TV. Almost 50% of the families had an air-conditioner (Zhu, 1996). To install all these appliances, the Shanghai Bureau of Electricity has thoroughly upgraded the building system. Also, as the socialist market economy replaced the planned economy, people needed more security for personal property and individuality. These growing demands drove the residents to make ad hoc operations to the interior and exterior walls. The term ad hoc in architecture means an unplanned, temporary addition to an original structure or system. In the case of my home, the ad hoc renovations could be categorized for two purposes. First are the infrastructure additions, including electricity cables, meters, and gas pipes. The rest are for personalized needs, such as anti-burglary fences and external cloth drying racks. Both were related to the economic changes in China.
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Ad hoc operations on the façade of my home. 2021
In the late 1990s, the use of heavy-electricity-consuming household appliances such as fridges, TV, and air-conditioners far exceeded the capacity of the existing cables. Initially, the whole apartment shared the same electricity meter, in which the fuse was integrated. In summer, when a lot of people were using the air-conditioner, the fuse would easily melt. To solve this problem, in 1994, Shanghai Electricity Bureau decided to install separate meters for each home so that the electricity could be more stable. To do so, they had to add cable rods and poles to the facade of the building all over the housing compound. The meters were installed on the interior walls of the public corridors. After the renovation, each could simultaneously use three air-conditioners, three televisions, two computers, one microwave oven without worrying about the fuse would melt (Jiang and Zhou 2020). The cost was that people had to bear with the messy cables flying all over the compound. The creatively positioned air-conditioner external units are also one of the most significant ad hoc features on the facade. After the Reform and Opening Up, foreign companies were allowed to enter the Chinese market. Companies such as Toshiba and
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Panasonic brought in advanced air conditioning technology, making air-conditioners affordable to local people. As it was impractical for the old apartment to have central air conditioning, each family had to purchase their own air-conditioner, which consists of an interior unit and an external unit. According to the official document Shanghai Urban
And Rural Planning Regulations, new-built buildings should reserve places for installing air-conditioner external units (Standing Committee of Shanghai Municipal People's Congress 2010). However, this regulation was only released in 2010, approaching the Shanghai EXPO 2010. Before the year, residents would hire mechanics to install the airconditioners without negotiating with the Compound Owner Committee (业主委员 会）. The mechanics are normally uneducated laborers, who would rarely consider the aesthetic of the facade while installing the air-conditioners. They usually choose the most convenient position according to their experiences. They have made the facade unorganized and dangerous, as the ad hoc process might not be completely professional The other type of ad hoc operations was not mechanical but also related to the individual needs of homeowners. First is the addition of the external cloth drying racks. For a long time, most people in China have been more used to drying cloth with sunshine and natural ventilation than using electric dryers. According to the National Household Appliances
Annual Report supervised by the government, the sales of electric dryers only started to increase in 2019 dramatically (China Electronics Information Industry Development Institute 2020). Native Shanghainese invented a unique form of drying rack called the “dragon gates （龙门架）.” The frame typically extends five to six meters outside the windows to hang more clothes. This magical device would be like a second facade layer,
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especially when fully loaded clothes and beddings. The main reason for the preference of using natural forces to dry clothes was that it was cheaper. They thought it was unworthy to spend so much money on an electric dryer. Moreover, a dryer would take up one square meter of the home. A square meter would be worth 16’000 dollars according to housing price in 2020 (Xie 2021). On the contrary, a dragon gate does not occupy any indoor spaces. However, these dragon gates disguised the original look of the facade. Residents’ clothes, towels, bedsheets, and underwear become a stylistic part of the facade of the building. These dragon gates are also neighborhood harmony breakers, as they would block the sunlight for families on lower levels, and the wet clothes on upper levels would drip water on the clothes of the lower floors. Apart from dragon gates, anti-burglary fences are also common on the facade. They are a consequence of the installation of the airconditioner external units. There was a risk of thieves climbing into the apartments on top of the external units so that people would add anti-burglary fences, basically steel cages,
The Dragon Gates drying racks
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outside their windows (Shanghai Urban Development Committee 2015). The added steel bars are also partially caused by economic growth. In the socialist market economy, people become more protective of their increasing private property than in the planned economy. With all these ad hoc operations driven by the economic shift in China after the reform and Opening Up, the original modern-looking facade became almost invisible.
The Individualization in Plan Driven by Programmatic Needs
The changes driven by economic needs in the plan are more subtle than those on the facade. They are mostly done by subtracting walls, adding partitions, or illegally enclosing spaces in the public area. The operations towards the plan embody the emergence of the economic class division after the Reform and Opening Up. These changes break the original intent of creating a standardized plan for every apartment. The first type of renovation is adding partitions to the original apartment to have separate rooms for more tenants. These tenants are in the bottom class of Shanghai. As one of the economic centers in China, Shanghai attracts a large population of labor from other provinces. According to the Seventh National Census, 42% of the people of Shanghai are from different parts of the country do not have Shanghai household registration（上海户 口） (Shanghai Bureau of Statistics 2021), which is the permit for purchasing an apartment and is extremely hard to obtain. They could only rent an apartment or reside in group-rental apartments (群租房）, which means sharing an apartment with strangers. In group rental, one three-bedroom apartment could accommodate more than seven people
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by adding partitions (thin wood panels or curtains) in the bedrooms. The tenants had to share the same bathroom and kitchen, but the rent was much cheaper. My neighbor separated his 60-square-meter apartment into six small rooms and rented them to young people who had low incomes. According to the Shanghai government, group-rental would foster social problems and crime. In 2009, right before Shanghai EXPO, the Shanghai government released a regulation against group-rental (Shanghai Land and Housing Resources Administration 2009), defining group-rental as a threat to social stability and residential safety. No action was implemented in 2009 because of the high demand for group-rental housing. The real reason for group-rental is the high price of apartments and the high threshold of obtaining a Shanghai household registration. Also, the government’s welfare housing is insufficient. The government only started to purge group-rental flats in 2021 (Shanghai Municipal Housing and Construction Commission 2021). The police also investigated my neighbor’s apartment. The economic pressure forced some of his tenants to give up their dreams in Shanghai and go back to their hometown. The renovated floor plan of this apartment reflects the pain and hardship of these economically lower-class people struggling to survive in the metropolis. The second type of intervention on the plan is the subtraction of walls to have a more open plan. This type of operation always happens in middle-class families. We also did so. The original configuration of my home had three bedrooms. As a family of four, we decided that we only needed two rooms, one for my parents and one for my brother and me. The wall of one bedroom and the kitchen wall was demolished to make the living room larger with bookshelves and desks so that the family could get closer together. Some
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homeowners would enclose the balcony to make it part of the bedroom. Some richer families would purchase two adjacent apartments and demolish their walls to have a larger apartment. These are examples of how the standardized plan could not fulfill individual residents’ needs.
A: The original plan of an apartment. B: The plan of my home. C: The floor plan of a group rental apartment. D: The illegal occupation of public corridor
The third type of operation to the plan is to enclose public areas to enlarge domestic areas illegally. Typically, people would use steel bars to enclose the area in front of their doors and make it a little threshold to place shoe-racks or use it as an extra storage place. In some cases, residents would place a washing machine or even enclose an extra bathroom in the public hallway. Some residents would put a wood shelf beside their front door to stack some rarely used objects in our apartment building. This kind of operation is also driven by the high price of housing. The space inside one apartment is so valuable that
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people had to use each square meter meticulously, and utilize every space they could, even outside their own property.
The individualization of my home disguised the original design intent to standardize housing during the post cultural revolution era. Understanding it in the other way, we can say that the building system of my home is exposed instead of covered under the facade. In some sense, it is a vernacular version of the high-tech genre. These operations symbolize the economy’s growth after the Reform and Opening Up and show the improvement of Chinese people’s lives. The messy facades of old public housing have already become a stylistic image of Shanghai, celebrating the individual will of citizens under the socialist market economy over the standardized, planned economy.
Bibliography Cai, Fang. 2018. "Perceiving Truth And Ceasing Doubts: What Can We Learn From 40 Years Of China's Reform And Opening Up?". China & World Economy 26 (2): 122. doi:10.1111/cwe.12234. China Electronics Information Industry Development Institute. 2020. "China Home Appliance Market Report." E, Hui. 2020. "From Extreme Gas Shortage To A Major Gas User Country". Xinmin Evening News, 2020. Jiang, Ling, and Junnan Zhou. 2020. "The History Of Electricity Consumption In A Residential District Witnessed The 70-Year Upgrade Of Shanghai's Electricity". Wen Wei Po (Chinese Newspaper), 2020. Shanghai Urban Development Committee, 2015. Suggestions on Regulating Shanghai Residential Compounds' Renovation Work. Shanghai, China: Architectural Standard Website. People's Government of Shanghai, 2021. Several Suggestions on Accelerating the City's Residential Renovation. Shanghai, China: Shanghai Government Official Site. Pye, Lucian W. 1986. "Reassessing The Cultural Revolution". The China Quarterly 108: 597-612. doi:10.1017/s0305741000037085. Lü, Junhua, Peter G Rowe, and Jie Zhang. 2001. Modern Urban Housing In China. Munich: Prestel. "Ministry Of Urban And Rural Construction And Environmental Protection's Principle Opinions On The Treatment Of Unauthorized Buildings In The Registration Of House Ownership.” 1988. China: Ministry of Urban and Rural Construction and Environmental Protection. Standing Committee of Shanghai Municipal People's Congress. 2010. "Shanghai Urban And Rural Planning Regulations.” Shanghai, China. Shanghai Bureau of Statistics. 2021. "Shanghai Seventh National Population Census Main Data Bulletin.” Shanghai: People's Government of Shanghai. http://tjj.sh.gov.cn/tjgb/20210517/2d1d4f05a2cc42ea94f991c9f19e6d4f.html. Shanghai Land and Housing Resources Administration. 2009. "Notice On The Urgent Improvement Of The Landlord's Convention And The Addition Of Provisions Related To The Regulation Of Leasing Behavior.” People's government of Shanghai.
Shanghai Municipal Housing and Construction Commission. 2021. "Notice On The Implementation Of The City's Residential District "Group Rent" Governance Special Action.” Shanghai: People's government of Shanghai. Song, Ke. 2018. "Political Ideology And The Production Of Architectural Theories In Mao’S China (1949–1976)". Architectural Histories 6 (1). doi:10.5334/ah.307. Brand, Stewart. How Buildings Learn. Penguin Books, 2012. Wang, Ya Ping, and Alan Murie. 2000. "Social And Spatial Implications Of Housing Reform In China.” International Journal Of Urban And Regional Research 24 (2): 397-417. doi:10.1111/1468-2427.00254. Xie, Yunliang. 2021. "How Long Would The Housing Price Rise?". Shanghai: Minsheng Securities. https://pdf.dfcfw.com/pdf/H3_AP202101131450205852_1.pdf?1610545774000. pdf. Xu, Bei. 2016. "Special Grade Teacher Huang Yufeng: Thirty Years Of Shanghai Teachers' Apartments.” Shanghai Observe, 2016. https://sh.qq.com/a/20161221/018114.htm. Qiu, Xin. 2019. "Development In Chinese Residential Building Project Construction.” Research Series On The Chinese Dream And China’S Development Path, 13-35. doi:10.1007/978-981-13-9558-1_2. Zhu, Daping. 1996. "Changes In The Life Of Shanghai Citizens Since The Reform And Opening Up". Shanghai Statistics 1996.10.
THE DANWEI SYSTEM AND THE INFLUENCE OF THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY ON MY HOME
Yifan Shen ARC 134, Comparison: Politics and History October 10, 2021
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My home was built in 1970s as one of the faculty dormitories of Fudan University. It is in northern Shanghai, China. Before the late 1990s, all the residential buildings in China were public property, and citizens were assigned to housing units within the system of public housing according to the communist government’s housing policy. At the time, the assignment of housing was according to “danwei”(单位), which in English means “Working Unit”. People who worked in the same factory, school, or hospital would not only work together, but also live together in the danwei’s dormitory (Peiling 2021). The unit danwei has profoundly influenced the physical spaces of housing compounds. The danwei that my home belongs to is Fudan University, which have been and still is one of the most prestigious universities in China, as well as in Asia. Established in 1923, the university has nourished numerous outstanding scholars and contributed to the development of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) (Fudan University, n.d.). The architecture of my home is thoroughly influenced by the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC). The master plan of my home compound has the typical imprints of a danwei housing compound. Its architecture style was the New Socialist Architecture Style, a result of government’s design principles of “appropriateness and economy” during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). The style was an expression of modernism but focused less on the aesthetics. Moreover, new decorative architectural elements that carries political meanings were added to the buildings during the EXPO 2010. These elements with colonial style ruin the buildings’ modernist looking. In 2019, my home compound was segregated into two parts. The part with a large garden was separated from the residential area and became a museum to commemorate the scholars who contributed to the communist party. The construction of my home and the renovations over different time periods shows the changes of the communist government’s ideology and ambitions.
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Danwei and My Home
Danwei is concept that has multiple layers of meaning. First, it is a distribution unit in the community level that was used in the resource-planning of the Chinese communist party. At that time, the Chinese government developed a top-down distribution system for food, goods, and housing. Everyone in the urban area was required to be in a Danwei, which could be a school, factory, or other institutions. (Ye et al. 2021) Second, Danwei as a socio-spatial unit, defines a community of people who work and live together, and there is a hierarchy within a danwei. People inside a danwei is closely bonded like a large family. Third, it is also a political unit, as each danwei is a branch of the CPC. People were generally divided into two groups within a danwei, cadres and workers. Cadres not only included the government leaders, but also those who demonstrate high professional skills or academic contributions (Wang and Murie 2000). Workers were the general public. This differentiation of social status was reflected while distributing the apartments. Cadres were always assigned larger apartments. More specifically, the Party branch would rank everyone within a danwei according to their contribution. People ranked higher would get to pick the apartments first. In a university like Fudan University, this “worker and cadre” hierarchy is much more complex and is determined by academic rankings. In a document of a University in Xi’an, the faculty members were dived into 11 ranks, from professors with Ph. D supervision status to graduate degree holders, and finally to normal employees with less than 12 years of working experience. Each rank would be assigned different sizes of apartments. For example, the highest-ranking professors would receive four rooms with a house, while the lowest-ranking normal employees would have to share a room with three people. The document even included who would get to choose first, among the same rank, according to the calculated points.
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The formula was: Overall Points = Status Points + Year of Work Experience Points + Award Points (Wang and Murie 2000). Although this kind of official documents cannot be found in Fudan University, the physical division of the Ninth Dormitory implies that there were similar policies in Fudan University. To accommodate the variety of rankings, the school divided my dormitory compound, which is the ninth compound, into three general parts. The first part is called the Figure 1: 1. The Ninth Garden; 2. The division for Senior Professors. 3: The division for normal faculties.
Ninth Garden (玖园), with three
delicate houses for the most prestigious professors, such as Wangdao Chen（陈望道） and Buqing Su（苏步青）, both were Presidents of the University. The second part is built for the senior-ranking professors, who would be assigned three to four rooms with a hall. The third part, which is the largest, is for the normal faculty members. In this division, most faculty members would be assigned a single room, and sharing a bathroom and a hall with two or three other faculty members. It is important to keep in mind that even though people were divided into different rankings, they were still equal in essence. Distributing apartments was not a way of zoning or segregation. Everyone inside a danwei would share the same public resources. They will dine in the same cafeteria and enjoy the public space together. Normal faculties from the third division could do exercises in the Ninth Garden. There was no
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privileged space. The distribution of the apartments reflected the Communist concept of “To each according to his/her contribution”(按劳分配). People’s salary at that time was extremely low, and they were assigned apartment and did not need to pay rent. This idea of distributing apartment also directly impacted master plan of my housing compound. In this way, the communist’s ideology is influencing the physical spaces. My family bought our home in the early 2000s, which was after the urban housing reform (1998). My home is in the third division, and my family of four occupied a single apartment with two bedrooms with a hall. The size of my home is 65 square meters. The housing reform allowed employees to sell their assigned apartments to people that were outside Fudan University. However, because the housing compound’s location is so close to Fudan University, the residents in it are still mostly university faculties and students. The compound retained its name as the Ninth Dormitory, and the university is still in charge of the management of the compound. In this way, I was able to experience a childhood inside a danwei. My mother is a professor in the university, and my neighbors were all faculty members, too. I went to the Primary School and Middle School Affiliated to Fudan University, which only accepts children from our danwei. Many of my schoolmates also lived in the Ninth dormitory, or other dormitories. We often played in the Ninth Garden together. The last prestigious professor who lived in the houses in the Ninth Garden passed away in the early 2000s, so all the houses in the Garden was abandoned and became our wonderland. My friends and I enjoyed adventuring in those old “haunted” houses. All kinds of plants grew over the houses. In this sense, our danwei, which includes the housing compound, was really my home.
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The Cultural Revolution and the New Socialist Architecture Style
Buildings in the Nineth Dormitory were mostly built in the Cultural Revolution and Post-Cultural Revolution period, except one of the houses from the Ninth Garden. The Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) was a sociopolitical movement initiated by Mao Zedong (毛泽东), the first chairman of PRC, to protect the communist ideology from the “erosion” of capitalism and traditionalism. Chinese traditional architecture, as an embodiment of the old Chinese imperial practice, was also criticized. During that violent period, seven hundred thousand scholars were executed, and numerous historical buildings were demolished (Pye 1986). The intense social movements paralyzed the economic and political activities. During this period, the two key words in Chinese architecture were anti-waste and anti-conservation. For new-building constructions, the government required that the leading principle of architecture is “appropriateness, economy, and if possible, beauty” (Qian 2015). Buildings designed according to this principle was called the New Socialist Architecture, as opposed to Chinese Revival architecture or New Nationalist architecture. They quoted “content determines form” from Marxist dialectical materialism (Song 2018). This in some way corresponds to the modernist idea Figure 2 Façade of a third-division dormitory
of “form
follows function”. The difference was that “beauty”, which is architectural aesthetics, was considered less important than economy. While in western modernism, aesthetics was highly valued. Paradoxically, the principles of appropriateness and economy
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actually were raised in traditional Chinese architectural treatises, such as Yingzao Fashi (营造法式)，which introduced the “Cai-fen” system to reduce waste and established architectural orders that reflects appropriateness. The principle of appropriateness and economy could be clearly reflected on the architectural style of my danwei. The façade of my home is very simple with no ornamentation. Disregarding the chaotic elements added by residents, the dormitory features a very clean façade, with only doors, windows, and stucco on the surface. The structure was masonry-concrete structure, which was the cheapest option that time. Although being minimalist, the appearance of the dormitories does not necessarily gives people a sense of elegancy, as the proportion of façade was not carefully considered, and the cheap material would decay easily. The appropriateness is reflected in the difference of three parts of the danwei dormitory. As introduced previously, the dormitory compound was divided to accommodate the hierarchy from the prestigious professors to senior professors, and finally to regular faculty members. In the highest division, three prestigious professors would each enjoy a single house. The first house was the only building that is built before the establishment of PRC in 1949. It was built during the Japanese-occupied period as a house for Japanese military officers. The building’s style is very interesting. It has a typical early 20th century modernist wall façade, which has simple, large geometrical windows. However, a traditional Chinese style tiled roof is added. It is another attempt to create a Chinese-style modernist building. In the early 1950s, following the national college department adjustment, Fudan University was assigned dozens of prestigious professors. Among whom, Wangdao Chen（陈望道）was the most important. The party secretary Xiguang Yang （杨西光）decided to utilize the existing house as Chen’s residence. There were a lot of objections during that time, but
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eventually Yang’s plan worked, because of Chen’s significant contribution to the Communist Party. Yang also commissioned to build two more buildings, in a similar architecture style for two other professors (Cao 2021). The three houses all have large gardens and at least 50 meters distance between one another, forming the Ninth Garden. Later in the 1970s, the two other divisions were built. The two dormitories in the division for the senior professors were both three-story buildings. The lower height not only guarantees better sunlight, but also was more convenient for people to access, as there were no elevators. Figure 3 Façade of Chen Wangdao’s house
Source: Fudan University Archive Center
Apartments in this division also contains four to five rooms with halls. The buildings
in the third division have four to five floors. It is hard for old professors to climb to the top floor, as there were also no elevators. Each housing unit within a building is also smaller, containing only two to three rooms with a small hall. These architectural features of my home influenced by the Cultural Revolution and Communist’s ideology were common in most of the danwei compounds in Shanghai, and even across the country. These buildings later triggered a series of renovation during the 21st century, when the New Socialist Architecture style was no longer preferred after the Cultural Revolution.
EXPO 2010 and the Retrograde of Architecture Elements
Around thirty years after my home was constructed, the compound experienced another major event that greatly changed its appearance, which was the EXPO 2010. At that time, buildings that were built before the 1990s were called the “Old Public
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Buildings”（老公房）that were considered problematic to the cityscape because of their decay. On one hand, residents were adding metal security window fences, airconditioner outdoor units, and outdoor drying racks to the façade, which became very messy. On the other hand, the building material itself was decaying due to the pursuit of economic efficiency during construction. The roofs were leaking, and walls were cracking. To welcome all the foreign visitors to Shanghai EXPO 2010 and showcase Shanghai’s prosperous status under communist’s rule, the government initiated a citybeautifying project, which included turning transparent metal fencing of the compound into solid concrete walls to prevent visitors from looking through, adding sloped roofs on top of flat roofs, and cladding the cracked building surfaces with ceramic
Figure 4 An arial view with the added red roofs and dormers.
Source: Fudan University Archive Center
tiles. After adding these elements, the originally simple façade of these buildings became complicated and less modernist. This could be
considered as a retrograde.
Figure 5 Dormers in Shi Ku Men. Source: Shi Ku Men Museum
In my danwei, all the dormitories added red sloped roofs with dormers on top of
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the original flat roof. ("Announcement Of Shanghai Multi-Story Housing "Flat To Slope" Roof Construction" 2021). These eye-catching roofs were proved to be not very useful apart from satisfying some government official’s ambition. On one hand, the roof could not be used as attics, as the design did not accommodate human’s living needs. Also, the ownership of the added attics would be a problem. On the other hand, the roofs were not successfully helping to prevent leaking, as many residents complained that the leaking became even worse, as the extra weight of the roof caused structural problems (Liu, 2011). Also, the increased height of the roof also made the sunlight condition worse in lower levels. The useless sloped roof addition was a betrayal to the idea of “content determines form”, while it is an act to enhance the city’s image of a colonized city with exotic architecture styles. One of the best-known architecture typology in Shanghai is the Shi Ku Men （石库门）, which combines features of British style row houses and Chinese style Jiangnan houses (History of Shi ku men, n.d.). They were mainly built in the international settlement during the 19th century and the early 20th century, and now become symbols of Shanghai. Moreover, the first national congress of the communist party of China (CPC) was held in a Shi Ku Men house in 1921, so this typology has a special symbolic meaning in the party’s discourse. The dormers on the added slope roofs were mimicking the dormers of the Shi Ku Men. Because the dormers will never be used as the attics are not occupiable, the dormers on top of my home became a pure political gesture towards to whole world, while Shanghai was placed under the spotlight during the EXPO 2010.
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70th Anniversary of the founding of PRC and the Memory Preservation
In 2019, another political event physically impacted my Danwei compound. 2019 was the 70th Anniversary of the founding of PRC, while 2021 is the 100th anniversary of the founding of CPC. President Xi intended to assert his control over the party and the country, including academic institution. Fudan University, known for its emphasis on academic freedom, changed its school slogan from “Independence of Academics and Freedom of Thoughts（学术独 立，思想自由）” to “Follow the guidance of the Communist Party” (Ministry of Education of PRC, 2019). In the same year, the party branch of Fudan University decided to renovate the three houses in the Ninth Garden into museums for patriotic education and show its loyalty to the central committee of the CPC. The visitors are mainly students and party-leaders. The house of Wangdao Chen was turned into the Museum of Communist
Figure 6：1. The Patriotic Architecture Cluster
2: The remained area of the compound that serves residential function
Manifesto, as Chen translated the Manifesto. Walls are built around the Ninth Garden to turn it into a fully enclosed patriotism building cluster Residents of the danwei compound were no longer allowed to enjoy the Ninth Garden. In this way, my home retrograded again, from an equal, accessible community to a segregated compound. In
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2019, Xi wrote a letter to compliment the volunteer guides who served at the museum for spreading the history of the CPC (Qiu, 2020). As a student grown up in this danwei, I was part of the volunteer team. The letter made my danwei Compound more politically famous. This reflects the new ideology of Xi’s administration – viewing political propaganda as one of the most important things.
Having spent my childhood in Fudan University’s Ninth Dormitory, my life was shaped the physical composition of the danwei Compound. The planning and the design of the danwei were directly influenced by the housing principles of the communist party. As I grew up, I witnessed the changes that happened to my danwei, and these changes are also related to the communist party’s propaganda purposes. My housing compound becomes a physical embodiment of how CPC’s ideology has changed over decades. Influenced by this political force, my housing compound experienced retrogrades. During EXPO 2010, it’s New Socialist Style was ruined by the addition of Shi Ku Men elements. In 2019, the compound was segregated for CPC’s propaganda purpose. These political events physically shaped my home as a dormitory of Fudan University, as well as an example of danwei housing compound.
Bibliography “Introduction.” Fudan University Official Site. Fudan University. Accessed October 17, 2021. http://www.gs.fudan.edu.cn/gsenglish/p2781c2649/list.html Peiling, Zhou. 2021. "A Socio-Economic-Cultural Exploration on Open Space Form And Everyday Activities In Danwei: A Case Study Of Jingmian Compound, Beijing." Wang, Ya Ping, and Alan Murie. 2000. "Social And Spatial Implications Of Housing Reform In China". International Journal Of Urban And Regional Research 24 (2): 397-417. doi:10.1111/1468-2427.00254. Ye, Nanqi, Michihiro Kita, Shigeki Matsubara, Seth Asare Okyere, and Motoki Shimoda. 2021. "Socio-Spatial Changes In Danwei Neighbourhoods: A Case Study Of The AMS Danwei Compound In Hefei, China." Song, Ke. 2018. "Political Ideology And The Production Of Architectural Theories In Mao’S China (1949–1976)". Architectural Histories 6 (1). doi:10.5334/ah.307. Pye, Lucian W. 1986. "Reassessing The Cultural Revolution". The China Quarterly 108: 597-612. doi:10.1017/s0305741000037085. Cao, Yang. 2021. "The Ninth Garden: From Professor’s Houses to a Patriotic Architecture Cluster". Fudan University Archive Center https://news.fudan.edu.cn/2021/0716/c974a109714/page.htm. Ministry of Education of PRC, 2019. Ministry of Education approves the revision of Fudan University's constitution. [online] Moe.gov.cn. Available at: http://www.moe.gov.cn/srcsite/A02/zfs_gdxxzc/201912/t20191216_412276.ht ml Liu, Z., 2011. The Negative Consequences of the "Flat to Slope" Policy. [online] Shszx.gov.cn. Available at: http://www.shszx.gov.cn/node2/node4810/node4851/zhxw/u1ai59779.html Web.archive.org. n.d. History of Shikumen. [online] Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20100430142738/http://english.eastday.com/e/sh mb/u1a4018862.html Qiu, L., 2020. President Xi Jinping Writes a Letter to Volunteers at Museum of Communist Manifesto. [online] Xinhuanet.com. Available at: http://www.xinhuanet.com/2020-06/30/c_1126176463.html
REDISCOVERING NORTHERN SHANGHAI COMMONS – THE OMITTED COMMUNITY MEMORIES
Yifan Shen ARC 134, Comparison: Cultural and History October 10, 2021
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Most people's impression of Shanghai would be the glamourous central business area crowded with Skyscrapers and the Exotic building clusters in the Bund. Yangpu district and Hongkou District, located in northern Shanghai as two of the eight central districts in Shanghai, are also frequently featured in the popular culture and contemporary media. However, certain periods of northern Shanghai's historical context and its influences on citizens’ daily lives seem to be constantly neglected, while the imagery of the Bund becomes a stereotypical icon in popular media. For me, the Commons, or the public spaces, in northern Shanghai has made my childhood memories. Also, historical community commons depicted in the words of older family members converges into my impression of “home”. This essay will briefly introduce the history of Northern Shanghai, examine how certain historical public spaces are omitted by pop culture, and analyze the reason behind this omission. Historically, Northern Shanghai has been occupied and influenced by multiple countries, which made it an area with rich historical layers. At first, Northern Shanghai was an unoccupied shallow area until its southern part was occupied by Britain then turned into the Shanghai International Settlement in 1863 1.
In the
early twentieth century, the Republic of China's government started developing Yangpu and Hongkou District and initiated the "Great Shanghai Plan" in 1929. They decided that Yangpu district and Hongkou district should be the city center, and the urban roads would radiate from the center point 2, which is now called the Pentagonal Plaza(五角场). There are still a lot of historical buildings existing from that period, including a city library and a Stadium. Later in 1941, Northern Shanghai, Hackett, Bob. Kingsepp, Sander. "Rising Storm - The Imperial Japanese Navy and China 1931-1941". 2012. https://www.archives.sh.cn/shjy/scbq/201911/t20191106_44488.html 2 Archive.sh.cn. "History of Shanghai's Roads and Toponymy". Sep. 16, 2019. http://www.combinedfleet.com/International_t.htm 1
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including part of the International Settlement, was occupied by the Japanese, and the "Great Shanghai Plan" was forced to stop. After China won the Anti- Japanese War in 1946 and the People's Republic of China's government took control in 1949, Theses two districts became the industrial zone of Shanghai. During this period, the architectural style in Northern Shanghai was greatly influenced by Soviet architecture. Since the 21st century, the government has been focusing on the education industry. With the existence of Fudan University and Tongji University, which are two of the top universities in China, Northern Shanghai easily became the educational center of Shanghai. Benefit from higher education, Northern Shanghai is also experiencing a technological and economic boost.
The Celebration of Post-modernism in Pop Culture
With its significance nowadays, northern Shanghai attracted a lot of popular media producers. TV dramas, movies, and reality shows were filmed, but mainly focusing on the post-modernism architecture and community space of the area. One
Figure 1: The Pentagonal Plaza in the late 20th century. Image source: Wujiaochang Journal, 1988.
Figure 2: The Pentagonal Plaza in 1997. Image source: Shanghai Archive Office, 2004
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Figure 3: A still from the movie Her (2013), featuring the Pentagonal Plaza in the background
of the most famous examples would be the Oscar-winning sci-fi movie Her (2013) 3. The movie described a love story between a human and a robot in the close future of Los Angeles. The director Spike Jones was fascinated by the futuristic vibe of the renovated Pentagonal Plaza and selected it as one of the back scenes. The Pentagonal Plaza has long been the center of northern Shanghai, and it is now one of the major commercial clusters in Shanghai, featuring five large shopping malls. Without any special effect, the large metal egg structure, which was constructed in 2006, floating above the plaza with its enchanting neon lights vividly rendered the effect of the near future. In this movie, Yangpu District gives the audience an impression of the melancholic loneliness of a cyberpunk city. Besides Her, domestic movies and TV dramas also tend to depict Northern Shanghai as a modern Metropole that disregards relatable human scales. For instance, in the Chinese fantasy movie How Long Will I Love You 4, Hongkou Soho, a post-modernism skyscraper designed by Kengo Kuma appeared in one scene when 3
IMDb.com. "Her". 2013. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/
Movie.douban.com (豆瓣网)."How Long Will I Love You (超时空同居)". 2018. https://movie.douban.com/subject/27133303/ 4
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the main characters were lost in the city. With the manipulation of color tone, the unconventional facade of Hongkou Soho in the backdrop gives people a feeling of “Jamais vu”, which establishes a sense of apathy and distance. Kengo Kuma's Hongkou Soho also appeared in multiple TV dramas. The TV series Weekend Parents tells a story of a busy couple who are busy at work only have time to take care of their child during weekends. Hongkou Soho appeared as the father's office building. The modern, large-scale design of this skyscraper enhances the contrast between the parent's busy working scenario and the warm, domestic atmosphere of their home.
The Neglected Community Memories
While northern Shanghai residents were proud to see landmarks of their home to be featured on the screen, the historical contexts behind these selected spots are always neglected. Many places, now possessing a fancy contemporary appearance, were once the community commons that shaped people’s memories of this area. As mentioned, the Pentagonal Plaza’s (五角场) history could trace back to being the city center of the Nationalist Party's master plan during the 1930s. During that time, the whole Hongkou district and Yangpu district was included in the top-down urban
Figure 4: The Sunrise Mall beside the Pentagonal Plaza, 1989. Image source: Shanghai Archive Office, 2004.
Figure 5: The demolition of the Sunrise Mall beside the Pantagonal Plaza. July 7, 2004. Image source: Shanghai Archive Office, 2004.
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planning, which was inspired by American modern city planning 5. The "Great Shanghai Plan" is the first example of modern city planning in China. The Nationalist government planned to build a Utopian city center that is wellorganized with abundant gardens and public parks, inspired by the western ideal of the “Garden City”. They Figure 6: The master plan of the “Great Shanghai Plan”. Image source: Shanghai Archive Office, 2018.
intended to compete with the
chaotic urban planning in the International Settlement in southern Shanghai. All the road networks and some most important buildings were completed according to the master plan. Later, most of the buildings that were originally part of the "Great Shanghai Plan" were demolished, but the organization of the planning largely influenced the area’s development and shaped citizens’ public lives and spatial recognition of northern Shanghai. After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the communist government decided to open a state-run shopping mall, the Sunrise Mall（朝阳百货）, on the Pentagonal Plaza in 1959. With the new shopping mall, the Pentagonal Plaza became the community center of Yangpu District. The area of Sunrise Mall reached 3400 Square meters and its daily turnover reached 1,500,000
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Fu, Linxiang. "Ups and Downs of Modern Shanghai Urban Planning". China Academic Journal Electronic Publishing House. 2021.
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CNY, which was a huge amount at that time 6. The Sunrise Mall was demolished in 2004 and was replaced by the privately operated Wanda Mall. The function of a community center that was planned in the “Great Shanghai Plan” was retained during these iterations, while the pop media only recounts a narrative that focuses on the modern appearance and neglects the grand historical narrative. Similarly, the site of Hongkou Soho used to be the largest indoor market in Shanghai, Hongkou Market(三角地菜场). First constructed in 1890, Hongkou Market has been a part of the International Settlement and the Japanese-held area and was eventually demolished in the 1990s. During the Japanese-occupied period, the three-stories-tall Hongkou Market was said to be "containing everything people could get in a native Japanese market 7." Hongkou Market was also culturally influential. The famous Chinese writer Lin Huiyin wrote an article "The Little Hongkou Market" to demonstrate the prosperity and the living atmosphere. In this sense, Hongkou Market was not only a place for trading goods but also a community center where a lot of social interaction took place. Now, the younger generations could still constantly hear their grandparent’s accounts of the memories of the great market that does not exist
Figure 7: A still from the movie "How long will I love you", featuring Kengo Kuma's Hongkou Soho in the background.
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Figure 8: A perspective of Hongkou Market's appearance in its Heyday, 1923. Image source: Wenhui.com
Archive.sh.cn. “The History of Shopping Malls on the Pentagonal Plaza – From the Sunrise Mall to Wanda Mall.” Mar. 1, 2019. https://www.archives.sh.cn/shjy/scbq/201903/t20190301_44033.html
Hongkou Culture. "Hongkou Memories: The Triangular Market's Japanese Experience". https://www.sohu.com/a/303180481_100015796. Mar. 22, 2019.
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anymore. As important public spaces, the Pentagonal Plaza, and the Hongkou Market, together with many other historical commons, carried precious local memories and were valuable sources of recovering people's daily life during that time. Unfortunately, these historical places were mostly demolished. Nowadays, most citizens only know the modern look of these places, even the history classes in local Shanghai schools are not covering this part of the local history. The popular culture is mostly attracted by the flashy appearance of the new buildings without taking the time to dig deeper into their historical contexts.
The Single Narrative of Shanghai Historical Commons
People might argue that Shanghai's history is quite richly represented in popular culture. The Exotic Building clusters in the Bund of Shanghai appeared in numerous films. For example, recent movies such as 1921 and The Eight Hundred. While these films familiarized the audience with some historical buildings in Shanghai, the content might also lead people to falsely believe that Shanghai’s history of commons is only about the Bund and architecture in that particular style. The historical architecture in the central downtown area, which includes Huangpu District and Jingan District, was
Figure 9: The Bund, 1890.Image Source: Archive.sh.cn.
Figure 10: Jiang Wan Stadium, Chinese Renaissance style façade. Image Source: Weibo.com
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part of the International Settlement since 1843 after the Opium War. As a result, the buildings in that area were mostly influenced by European and American architecture, specifically Neo-classical and Art-Deco style 8. However, the story of Northern Shanghai was different. At the time, Shanghai was divided into three territories, which were the international settlement, the French settlement, and lastly the Chinese territory (华界). The Chinese territory was northern Shanghai. The Pentagonal Plaza was built during that time as the focal point. Stadiums, Government buildings, institutions were built as a part of the “Great Shanghai Plan”. These buildings were designed by American-trained Chinese architects. Their aim was to revive the traditional Chinese architectural style while utilizing modern construction techniques. The genre they developed was called the Chinese Renaissance Architecture 9. The Nationalist Government anticipated that these monumental buildings would be civic centers that host public activities, and they did for a short period of time after the completion. The ambitious plan was forced to stop due to the Anti-Japanese War started in 1937, and the practice of Chinese Renaissance style was never systematically continued after since, as the communist government was influenced by the soviet architecture while initiating new constructions. Nowadays, people can still find buildings of the Chinese Renaissance Architecture style in Shanghai. Some are deserted, while some are still in use and act as important community commons. I still remember that when I was young, I went to the Jiang wan Stadium （江湾体育场） to swim with my friends every weekend. Jiang wan Stadium was the Shanghai Central Stadium that the Nationalist government planned. 8
Zhai, Quan. "The Bund: The Perfect Setting to Admire Classical Architecture in the Far East." Classisist.org. Dec. 15, 2020. 9 Li, Ho-yin; Distefano, Lynne. “Chinese Renaissance Architecture in Shanghai and Hongkong.” The Institute of Historic Building Conservation. July, 2016.
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Indeed, the history of parts of Shanghai is richly represented in pop culture. However, rather than northern Shanghai, the pop media mostly focuses on the southern area, particularly the Bund and the Exotic Historical Building Clusters. The historical commons in northern Shanghai have been neglected.
The Formation of the Omission
While the Neo-classical and Art-Deco buildings in southern Shanghai and the modern buildings in Northern Shanghai received abundant popular attention and formed a stereotypical impression of Shanghai, the northern public buildings in Chinese Renaissance style and other historical commons have been in a long period state of neglection. There were multiple reasons behind this interesting ignorance. One of the main reasons might be that the discussion of the Nationalist government era is still sensitive in the political environment of China. After the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949, former nationalist members were considered as the Counterrevolutionaries of the “Five Black Categories” 10 and some of them were executed. In this situation, the remnants of nationalist urban planning and architecture styles were also considered against the ideology. The communist government systematically renamed most of the streets in Shanghai that were originally named after nationalist leaders or contained nationalist political goals since
Figure 11, Old Shanghai Citizen Library. 2018. Image Source: Baidu.com 10
Figure 12, Shanghai Municipal Government Building. 1936. Image Source: Article “Chinese Renaissance Architecture.”
Jian, Guo; Song, Yongyi; Zhou, Yuan. “Introduction”. Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. p. xi. 2006.
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1950 11. For a long time, the Chinese Communist Party’s political propaganda intentionally skips the accomplishments of the Nationalist government during the 1930s. For the same reason, films and TV dramas depicting that era are examined strictly. TV dramas in mainland China often depict the Nationalist government as the “bad guy”. Southern Shanghai, as the former international settlement, is relatively not that sensitive. That might be a reason why northern Shanghai commons seldom appear in popular culture, as the pop culture in China is filtered by the government. The awareness of historic preservation in Northern Shanghai did not rise only until recent years. The Citizen Library and Museum of the “Great Shanghai Plan” was only recognized as a historical preservation spot in 2004, which is way too late, comparing to monuments in northern Shanghai that were listed in 1989 12. Moreover, the Hongkou Market has never been on the list of preservation till its demolition. The reason might be the Market, a common in citizens’ daily lives, was so humble that people did not recognize its value. Economically, Northern Shanghai was developing very fast along with the whole country since the 1990s. The need for land is rising, and the developers removed the old buildings to build new skyscrapers. The government also prioritized economic development over historical preservations. In this sense, it was important for a historical building to be placed on the preservation list before the 1990s so that it could survive the demolition trend during the fast-developing period. Another reason is related to the historical significance of Northern Shanghai. As mentioned, though the “Great Shanghai Plan” was massive and ambitious, it was only
Shanghai Local History Office (上海市地方志办公室), “Chapter 4, Transportation Names”. Aug. 11, 2004. 12 Shanghai Local History Office (上海市地方志办公室), “Local History Index Historical Preservation Sites”. Aug. 11, 2004. 11
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developed for seven years, when the construction was only at the second phase, then forced to cease. As a result, only a small portion of the buildings was completed. In comparison, the international settlement was established in the 1840s, and the land was returned in 1940. During this time span of a century, numerous buildings were constructed, forming a holistic cityscape of exotic buildings, whereas, in northern Shanghai, the Chinese Renaissance Style buildings were not enough to form clusters, and the urban planning is at such a large scale that normal people could not perceive its existence without looking at the map, even though their daily lives were influenced by the masterplan. Finally, the neglection has something to do with a typical Chinese mindset of “Chong Yang Mei Wai (崇洋媚外)”, which means overly-respecting “yang” that are the exotics, and foreign cultures. Neo-Classicalism and Art-Deco are recognizable because of their western, exotic look. It is fashionable to take pictures in front of these foreign historical buildings and post them on social media. However, the Chinese Renaissance architecture looks like the local buildings, so it is possible that citizens would not realize the importance of preserving this style of architecture.
Growing up in northern Shanghai, I am familiar with the history of the community through listening to my parents’ discussions as well as through my own experiences. In some way, the community commons in northern Shanghai, particularly the public spaces influenced by the “Great Shanghai Plan” shaped my childhood. I felt it unfortunate that most people could only know Shanghai from a single popular narrative that emphasizes the fancy post-modernism architecture or the exotic building cluster along the Bund. Through knowing the history of northern Shanghai, people could better understand the complex historical situation in the past centuries and the formation of the urban fabric of Shanghai. The audiences could also be
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intrigued by the unfamiliar side of Shanghai if TV dramas and films include the historical civic commons in northern Shanghai and the diverse nature of northern Shanghai civic life, which is also my impression of the community that I call home.
Bibliography Archive.sh.cn. "History of Shanghai's Roads and Toponymy". Sep. 16, 2019. https://www.archives.sh.cn/shjy/scbq/201911/t20191106_44488.html Hackett, Bob. Kingsepp, Sander. "Rising Storm - The Imperial Japanese Navy and China 1931-1941". 2012. http://www.combinedfleet.com/International_t.htm IMDb.com. "Her". 2013. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/ Movie.douban.com (豆瓣网)."How Long Will I Love You (超时空同居)". 2018. https://movie.douban.com/subject/27133303/ Fu, Linxiang. "Ups and Downs of Modern Shanghai Urban Planning". China Academic Journal Electronic Publishing House. 2021. Archive.sh.cn. “The History of Shopping Malls on the Pentagonal Plaza – From the Sunrise Mall to Wanda Mall.” Mar. 1, 2019. https://www.archives.sh.cn/shjy/scbq/201903/t20190301_44033.html Hongkou Culture. "Hongkou Memories: The Triangular Market's Japanese Experience". https://www.sohu.com/a/303180481_100015796. Mar. 22, 2019. Zhai, Quan. "The Bund: The Perfect Setting to Admire Classical Architecture in the Far East." Classisist.org. Dec. 15, 2020. Li, Ho-yin; Distefano, Lynne. “Chinese Renaissance Architecture in Shanghai and Hongkong.” The Institute of Historic Building Conservation. July, 2016. Jian, Guo; Song, Yongyi; Zhou, Yuan. “Introduction”. Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. p. xi. 2006. Shanghai Local History Office (上海市地方志办公室), “Local History Index – Transportation Names”. Aug. 11, 2004. http://www.shtong.gov.cn/newsite/node2/node2245/node70862/node70870/inde x.html
Shanghai Local History Office (上海市地方志办公室), “Local History Index – Historical Preservation Sites”. Aug. 11, 2004. http://shtong.gov.cn/newsite/node2/node2245/node64620/node64632/node6472 0/node64724/userobject1ai58540.html