Yuyuan Garden: A Landscape Made of Frames
At Yuyuan, a wall, rock, bridge or pavilion can turn a small space into a succession of larger imagined scenes. Its design makes movement part of the view.
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Shanghai
36 articles
Shanghai Qipao: Read the Cut, Not Just the Motif
A qipao is more than a recognizable collar or print. Shanghai tailoring can be read through its fitted shape, seams, fabric and the handwork behind particular garments.
Fuzhou Road: Bookshops, Old Editions and Paper Goods
From a many-floor book city to specialist old-book work and stationery, Fuzhou Road invites readers to notice what kind of book—and what kind of paper culture—a shop holds.
Yuyuan Bazaar: Shopping Beside a Garden
The bazaar is a commercial neighbor to Yuyuan Garden, not the garden itself; its craft shops make the distinction between a historic setting and contemporary retail visible.
Tianzifang: Lanes, Workshops and Small-Scale Making
Tianzifang's factories, lane houses and craft retail belong to different layers of its history; reading them together clarifies what the district preserves and what it sells today.
Xintiandi: Shikumen Forms, New Retail Uses
Xintiandi shows how a commercial redevelopment can retain Shikumen street forms while assigning them new cultural, dining and retail functions.
Huaihai Road: Fashion Between Facade and Storefront
Plane trees, older facades and changing retail interiors make Huaihai Road a place to read fashion through the spaces that frame it.
Nanjing Road: The Department Store as a City
On East Nanjing Road, department-store windows, vertical movement and changing names tell how shopping became part of Shanghai's modern public life.
Chongming Dongtan: A Tidal Wetland at the Yangtze’s Edge
Dongtan is a named wetland on Chongming Island, within Shanghai’s Chongming District. Its estuary setting connects Shanghai to the Yangtze River mouth and a wider system of migratory-bird habitats.
Lujiazui Across the Huangpu: How a Skyline Faces a River
Lujiazui’s famous towers make more sense as a group arranged around the Huangpu River. Their story links Pudong’s development after 1990 with a changing idea of Shanghai’s public waterfront.
Machines by the Huangpu: Yangpu’s Industrial Waterfront
Yangpu’s riverfront preserves the scale of a working industrial district. Factories, warehouses and waterworks show how Shanghai’s modern city was built—and how old production sites can enter public life.
The Bund: Buildings Facing a River
The Bund is more than a row of grand facades. Read from the Huangpu River inward, its architecture traces Shanghai's changing relationship with finance, the waterfront and the city behind it.