Angelo Severino R.

Salas September 7, 2023

BS - Arch 3 Ar. Solis
AR 3133

SHANGHAI AND IT’S IMPLICATIONS

During 1845, Shanghai was a town concentrated on a 2.04sq. km piece of land

surrounded by various cultivated fields, good soil, and the Huangpu River at it’s east.
It’s town center was enclosed by 4.5km perimeter fortified walls with seven
guarded gates as the access points. Internal streets ran from south to north and
from east to west, a common pattern in most traditional Chinese cities, those
streets were small however and in order to prepare for the foreign capitalists that
were interested on what the land could be, Shanghai needed a change…
From that point until 1849, English capitalists chose a land north of the old town and
west of Huangpu River in which they situated their first office and embassy in a
neglected fortress where only old ship manufactures, carpentry shops and cotton
fields can be found in vicinity. This was needed as the site establishes an
international port, it could operate a number of trade routes from here that were all
about 10,000 miles in distance from some of major ports in the world, such as
London and New York. For that purpose both the English and French concessions
were realized which would soon lead to the International Settlement. 10 years later,
in order to handle the trade boom that occurred as a result of the settlement, hard-
surfaced roads 8 m in width were constructed and continuously expanded
westward. A port was built along Huangpu River and had grown to be one of the
biggest ports of the nation. European style concrete-style structures were also
built in the vicinity.

In 1869, there was a rising need for improvements on the housing in Shanghai as fire
safety had become more of an issue. With that came the Lilong Housing
Development. The once wooden structures were changed into brick structures with
a part wooden-structure were adopted to develop formal type of housing for
traditional extended rich families. With developments in the industry, the need for
more compact urban lots increased which gave way to the new Shi-ku-men lilongs
were also made to shelter small-sized, non-traditional families which emerged after
the disintegration of traditional extended families with the dismantling of the
Qing Dynasty in 1911.

As Shanghai came near to 1914, the foreign concessions had obtained an area of
32.32 sq. km, sixteen times of the old Chinese town. Within this area, the
International Concession was 22.6 sq. km, and the French Concession was 10.22 sq.
km. The original concession had turned out to be the commercial and financial
headquarters of Shanghai. The Bond, with its grand foreign-styled architecture,
became a symbol or landmark of the city. With these in hand, it soon replaced
Guangzhou, an open port city of the southern coast, to be the new national center
for trade, commercial, transportation and light industries.
At this time, rapid development and commercial prosperity rose up in Shanghai
which attracted the attention of millions of migrants. To capitalize on this boom,
major roads like Nanjing, Sichuan, and Jingling Road were mostly occupied by
important foreign or national financial agencies, offices, large shops and
restaurants. Entertainment such as theaters, clubs and parks were also mixed in.
Smaller roads even had small scale business centers built to cater to the rising
commercial needs. Shanghai's prosperity was expressed by its vast array of
assorted shops and wide variety of recreation, no matter large or small or owned by
the natives or foreigners. The city was renowned for its "10 miles of commercial
streets". It earned the nickname of "Paris of the East".
At the end of 1941, the construction of lilong houses come to a halt since Shanghai
fell under the control of Japanese conquerors. After the Sino-Japan War,
Shanghai's economy sunk into depression. The real-estate developments also
stagnated as a result. To get back from this fall, new lilongs were realized, these
lilongs were rows of attached courtyard houses, however the layouts of houses
were modified to adapt to the needs of small-sized, low-income families. Being very
dense and harshly built, the function of houses were not well considered, and their
interior standard was restricted by the current technology.

From 1990s onwards, Shanghai has went into a dramatic urban expansion and
redevelopment of its downtown. The changes are attributed to the demolition of
entire dilapidated neighborhoods, relocation of communities, and construction of
modern towers. This profit-driven redevelopment model proved easy to implement,
but had little regard for the preservation of the urban fabric or the historically
significant identity of the city. This is what led to how modern Shanghai looks at the
moment.

References.
1.) https://www.mcgill.ca/mchg/student/lilong/chapter2
2.) https://urban-regeneration.worldbank.org/Shanghai