Shanghai Street Stories

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Over a month ago, on a cloudy spring afternoon, I found myself standing in front of a spectacular Art Deco building, all eight floors of mustard yellow and mocha exterior towering over the surrounding low-rises.

The eye was immediately drawn to the apex where an elongated ornament embellished with a spire and sunrise motif sat atop a prominent column.

And like sunrays, the angular façade streaked outwards the length of a block along both Nanchang Lu (南昌路) and Maoming Nan (or ‘south) Lu (茂名南路). Steel-framed windows wrapped around on all sides and glistened ever so slightly as the clouds shifted.

Presently, locals refer to it as Nanchang Building (南昌大楼) though it was originally known as The Astrid Apartments. Built in 1933 by property company Wing On (owned by the Kwok family), the building had been exclusively occupied by foreigners with servants living in the back quarters.

The Astrid was designed by the architect W.Livin-Goldstaedt, though little is known about him. He worked with the shortly lived Eastern Asia Architects and Engineers Corporation and the only other record of his work was the King Albert Apartments, a cluster of elegant four-storey apartments a few blocks away.

Serendipitously, as I stood outside the building entrance writing notes, a young woman exited the locked gates. She looked quizzically at me and thinking I was a visitor, kept it open.

I avoided the creaky elevator and took the stairs, steadily passing doors of small businesses, associations and private residences. With each floor, I discovered eroded floor tiles, rusted windows and dirtied walls in the dim hallways.

Yet the parsimonious elegance of the Art Deco design was evident in the doors marked by the classic geometric header, as were the window grills and moldings.

According to The Astrid’s blueprints, there are three entrances and elevators, and flats ranged from studios, two to four room flats. I had traced each wing via difference entrances and discovered recessed balconies facing another cluster of old housing.

Some flats were boarded up; one had rotting floor and junk strewn about. Otherwise, most were inhabited and renovated with metal gates and linoleum floors. Doors were firmly shut and residents kept to themselves. There was little sign of overcrowding, just the creeping decay and neglect of public housing.

Upon reaching the rooftop, I was greeted by The Astrid’s spire and ornament in a sea of laundry hung out to dry. The eight floors allowed a bird’s eye view of the surrounding neighborhood – a mix of typical Shanghai lilong housing and 1930s low-rise apartments – yet was close enough to observe people going about their daily errands.

With the balmy wind to keep me cool on the roof, I watched scooters weave in and out of traffic; children play in lanes across the street and older residents gossiping along the sidewalks.

Over several weeks, I returned to The Astrid to photograph in better light, and always wound up whiling the afternoon away on the roof. It was a quiet retreat from the buzz of the neighborhood, and Shanghai’s hectic pace. I often wondered if the roof, when it was first built, had been a special place for residents or servants to steal away to as well.

March 2012

Note: For a more compelling visual and historical insight into the influence of Art Deco in Shanghai’s heritage architecture, I recommend Deke Erh and Tess Johnston’s “Shanghai Art Deco” (Old China Hand Press, 2006).

“No, I told you, you can’t go upstairs if you’re not a guest,” the teenage hotel desk clerk scowled at my camera.

Just then, a portly middle-aged man waddled up to the counter and interrupted me, “How much for a room for 3 hours?” Her suspicious eyes not leaving me, the desk clerk pointed to a board on the wall which indicated day and overnight rates.

As the man contemplated, I noted his lady friend seated on the couch, her long legs encased in a mini-skirt, examining her fingernails. Without missing a beat, he grunted, “I’ll take the small room.”

I couldn’t resist a quiet laugh. So there I was, in the tiny lobby of a budget inn watching a man preparing for some afternoon delight, in what was a former Seventh-day Adventist Church (沪北会堂).

It was hard to miss this handsome red-bricked building along Wujing Lu (武进路), close to Wusong Lu (吴淞路), with its Gothic-inspired equilateral arches yet built in a manner reminiscent of its times. It was the first church built by the Seventh-day Adventist in Shanghai in 1905 and later expanded in 1924 to its present two-storey, Settlement design.

Interestingly, Wujing Lu, formerly known as Range Road, has a colorful history and one can always rely on Paul French of ChinaRhyming for a bit of historical context. Range Road marked the northern border of the International Settlement in Hongkou and the Chinese-managed part of Shanghai. According to French, border roads bred proprietors that skirt (literally) the law with businesses such as low-end bars and brothels, hence attracting a diverse group of characters including hoodlums and gangsters. But looking around the beautiful houses in the neighborhood, one imagined Range Road to have been quite tame for a border road.

Details on the activities of the church are scant, but I found out that the church had rented out the space on occasion. One particular patron was the famed writer Chinese Lu Xun, who held a Russo-French Book Illustration Exhibition on the premises in 1933. The church laid empty for much of the Cultural Revolution and later served as a kindergarten and primary school. Appropriately enough, the space transitioned into a spacious restaurant when China’s economy opened up after 1979 and eventually into the present arrangement of a smaller restaurant and budget inn.

I had wanted to see the second floor of the building from the inside, hence the awkward situation with the temperamental hotel desk clerk. My limited sleuthing inside and around the church revealed an interior that had absolutely no architectural connection with the exterior.

At this point, the hotel manager was called down, a middle-age man who looked more curious than annoyed. I explained the situation to him, sharing the history of the building in effort to assuage his suspicion that I was going to expose the seedy underside of budget inns.

“Yes, yes. I have heard about the history,” he waved his hand in acknowledgement, “It was a church. But you still can’t go up. There is nothing worth looking at. The outside is just a shell. The rooms have square windows and are not at all aligned with the outside windows. It would have been too expensive and impractical. Don’t bother.”

Behind him, another couple strolled down. The man yawned heavily as his girlfriend checked out of the hotel.

After a 15 minute back and forth, I unwillingly admitted defeat and left. As I lingered outside to take more photos, the hotel clerk, with her busy fingers furiously texting, continued to watch my every move.

July 2011