Boom Town

Words Katie Newton
Photography Simon Devitt

It’s the epicentre of China’s burgeoning economy, known for its razzle dazzle style. Shanghai: the city that the whole world is watching.

The immaculate waif from the Shanghai Urban Planning Centre is gesturing with a bird-boned hand at the sprawling city model before her. She’s explaining that in less than four years, almost seven square kilometres of city is going to be razed, studded with all manner of buildings and pavilions and populated with millions of worker bees, volunteers, tourists and delegates, in time for the World Expo 2010. It seems an impossibly tall order. “Shanghai,” she assures us, “will be ready.”

If a public servant in New Zealand tried to spin that yarn, it’d be met with a healthy dose of disbelief and eyeball rolling. Yet, in Shanghai, no one doubts it will be done. The mega-tropolis of 17 million people is well-versed in large-scale change, and has developed lightning-quick reflexes to cope. From the dynastic upheavals of ancient history to the 20 th century’s foreign occupations, cultural revolution and most recently, the Open Door policy, this city has proven that it’s at its storming best in the face of uncertainty.

In just 150 years, Shanghai has risen from a scattering of swampy fishing villages to become one of the most exciting cities on the planet. Much like in the ‘20s and ‘30s when it was a popular foreign outpost for the Brits, French and Americans, it is being celebrated once again, for its dizzying pace of life, cosmopolitan culture and unparalleled opportunities to make a pot of gold. Not even the political strangulation of the cultural revolution or the subsequent 50-year-long neglect of its infrastructure, saw the city lose any perceptible measure of its enterprise, ambition or sass.

To walk down the street in Shanghai is to experience an assault on the senses. The summer heat steams you like a dumpling, awakening cloying, pungent aromas that waft past at unpredictable intervals. A brownish smog muffles the sky, like gauzy cotton wool stretching into every crevice. Despite a seemingly fruitless struggle to reach ground level, the ladies of Shanghai protect themselves from the rays of the sun by carrying pastel parasols and tying delicate lace capes around their shoulders to maintain their perfect, fashionable white complexions. At street level, proceedings buzz along with the same pep and intensity as they do in many other large Asian cities; It’s when you gaze upwards that you start to realise the extent to which hungry developers have made their mark on this one.

The most brazen display of upward mobility can be seen in Pudong, on the eastern side of the city. In 1991, the area was little more than a swampy collection of fishing villages tumbling muddily into the Huangpu River, but was earmarked for development by the Shanghai Development Corporation, to become a new business sector for the city. Fast forward 15 years, and Pudong’s got a skyline straight out of Bladerunner – rows and rows of giant skyscrapers, fighting for airspace in a tangle of glass and steel. There’s the triple globes of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, the haughty glint of the golden Aurora and the 88 storey pagoda-style Jin Mao; the tallest of them all until it will be knocked off its perch by the World Finance Centre next year. During the day, the buildings fade into a tangle in the murk, and at night, they become a fantastical array of winking multi-coloured lights. Street level at Pudong is oddly unsettling for a new pedestrian – wide, multi-laned roads readily maroon you, and there’s no shortage of facetious white-gloved officials to stop you taking photos on the footpath.

Across the river, squaring off against the spectacle, are the solid granite facades of the Bund, Shanghai’s other famous skyline. It is here that the financial and commercial hub of the city arose at the turn of last century – a wall of neo-classical architecture that wouldn’t look out of place in the heart of London. Most recognisable is the clocktower of the Park Hotel, until the ‘80s, the tallest building in the city. But its now easily dwarfed by spiky new neighbours. The Bund is still the widest street in Shangahi, lined on one side with hawkers and shoe shines, and on the other, boutiques like Armani and Dolce & Gabbana. The growing ex-pat community and the fattening wallets of the upper class locals have demanded a spruce-up, and you can just as easily find a fine fillet steak and bottle of Cloudy Bay Sauvingnon Blanc as you can a greasy bag of Peking duck.

Westerners will find the neighbourhood of the French Concession among the most charming; it’s got just the right mix of history, boutiques and restaurants, yet a glance down any side street will give a fascinating view of Chinese street life with lines of washing pegged out to dry and lanterns hanging in the windows. The low-rise residential architecture still seems relatively authentic, if that is indeed a relevant value in this city where the past slips so quickly from view that you are left wondering if it was ever really there to begin with.

“Hysterical preservationists” are what architect Ben Wood calls the new breed of do-gooders that have appeared to try and preserve what’s left of the inner city’s original character. His heavily criticised French Concession development of Xintiandi has been involved restoring two blocks of shikumen (or stone-gate) housing, keeping the facades and hand hammered granite paving but populating the interiors with expensive boutiques and swish restaurants. Thousands of people were “relocated” to outlying apartment blocks but Wood insists they were fairly compensated. But now, few working class Shanghaiese could even afford a cup of coffee here.

As the only architect approached about the development that didn’t want to tear every last building down, Wood is miffed by the criticism. He points out that culture lives through people, not buildings, and that preserving them is a Western idea. Considering the speed of change in Shanghai, one wonders if indulging in nostalgia is just not an option.