Shanghai's former glory

The exterior of the new Rockbund Art Museum. Photo: Gareth GeorgeOnce known as one of the most glamorous cities in the world, Shanghai and its signature strip The Bund have endured economic turmoil, war and political and cultural transformation. A new project is returning the area to its intriguing and prosperous past, with several restored buildings recently opening to the public.

Foreigners put roots in Shanghai at the beginning of last century, on the banks of the Huangpu River, south of Suzhou Creek. The east was crow-barred open and money came spilling out. China had men and resources both common and exotic. Money began to arrive in Shanghai - dug from the pockets of the opiate addicted and the coffers of warmongers. Shanghai rose up the ranks and capitalism ruled and ever would. Buildings grew that reflected the power of the new arrivals, while the facades made a passing celebration of the fact that they were, of course, in Asia. Otherwise it was business as usual.

While the old British Consulate in Shanghai now houses officials rather than diplomats, The Bund's skyline has not changed dramatically changed despite the upheavals of history.

Other buildings on the strip include the National Industrial Bank Building, carved of stone and white marble in 1929; rigid, confident, sparkling. You can still stroll into the old vault that is only touched with rust. The safety deposit boxes are still locked, although the hinges on the draws are long since snapped; ransacked. You wonder how many families in Taiwan, or maybe London or New York, still have a key in some forgotten draw bearing the sigil NIB.

The confidence of the new masters of the universe did not foresee war and liberation, but while the hubris is long gone, the buildings remain.

Now, thanks to an agreement between Sinolink and the Rockefeller Group, the area will live again, with the development of the Rockbund project at Waitanyuan set to be completed in 2014.

The 94,000-square-meter development comprises of the restoration of 11 examples of Shanghai's finest art deco and modernist architecture. The developers promise the area will be "reborn" as Shanghai's most fashionable neighborhood, as it was always intended. "We don't preserve the past," the developers said, "We free it."

Beginning in 2005, the project recently opened two renovated buildings.

The Royal Asiatic Society building, originally constructed in 1933, will continue to display beautiful items as it did 60 years ago, now as the Rockbund Art Museum. Instead of natural history exhibits from the British Museum, it will be home to Chinesecontemporary art. The first exhibition, which wrapped up Sunday, featured Cai Guo-Qiang's Peasant Da Vincis. Cai's peasants have created submarines and gyrocopters; robots and UFOs.

"Anxiety is present in Chinese society over its state of transition between 'made in china' and 'created in china' and it is the hundreds of millions of rural workers who have paid the price for the construction of modern society and better urban life in the reform era," Cai told the Global Times.


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