A Visit to Shanghai's People's Square
Cultural and Political Center of Shanghai Draws the Crowds
Apr 25, 2009
Shanghai may be ever-changing but People’s Square remains the city’s focal point. Below ground, metro lines 1, 2 and 8 interchange at the labyrinthine People’s Square station, while above ground crowds flock to the leafy haven of People’s Park, an ill-defined oasis of greenery in the center of the city.
The Story of Shanghai’s People’s Square
People’s Square has been many things in its time. The park was originally the Shanghai Racecourse, the social heart of British Shanghai. Increasingly fringed by striking Art Deco architecture during the 1920s and 1930s, World War Two saw it become a holding camp for detainees.
The park was divided into two by the broad thoroughfare of Renmin (People’s) Avenue in the 1950s. However, it was not until the 1990s that People’s Square formally became the administrative and cultural centre of Shanghai, with architecture to match.
Striking Architecture in People’s Square
Today’s square is dominated by four set-piece buildings. Built in 1996, Shanghai City Hall and the Shanghai Museum face each other across the broad swathe of Renmin Avenue. Their architecture fits their respective roles – City Hall is a severe structure in the best Communist tradition, while the Shanghai Museum, shaped like an ancient Chinese bronze vessel, is a homage to Chinese tradition. Home to around 120,000 objects, the Shanghai Museum is considered to be the best museum in China.
Flanking City Hall is the Shanghai Grand Theatre, built in 1998 and designed by Arte Charpentier & Associates. With three theatres seating 1,800 people and a distinctive sweeping roof, the Grand Theatre is the centre of Shanghai’s highbrow entertainment scene, with a program of classical music and ballet.
On the other side of City Hall is the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall, with its equally distinctive, if slightly quirkier, roof. If ever a city deserves a building devoted to urban planning, Shanghai is it. The city’s construction boom – necessitating the use of a quarter of the world’s cranes, it is sometimes said – shows little sign of abating. The Shanghai World Expo, due to start in May 2010, has given the city’s architects and developers an extra boost. The Expo’s mascot, Haibao, stands guard outside the entrance to the hall in all his cheery blue glory.
Designed by architect Ling Benli, the Urban Planning Exhibition Hall was built in 2000.
In addition to the four structures described above, People’s Square is surrounded by a range of striking buildings, testimony to Shanghai’s cosmopolitan past and ambitious present. In the 1930s the prolific Czech-born architect Ladislaus (Laszlo) Hudec designed the iconic Park Hotel (the tallest building in the city well into the 1980s), the Grand Theatre and the Moore Memorial Church, to name just three fringing the north of the park.
Overlooked by the crisp futuristic form of Tomorrow Square tower (built in 2003), the Shanghai Art Museum, on the northwest corner of the Park, retains its 1930s elegance. It used to be the race-course club house, and was used as the Shanghai Library from 1949 to 1998, before re-opening as the Shanghai Art Museum in 2000. The museum is topped by a posh rooftop restaurant, Kathleen’s 5.
For those worn out by the museums and the exhibitions, it is possible to sit on a bench with a cold drink and watch a very busy Chinese world go by. People’s Square is well named.
Sources:
Shanghai Architecture, Anne Warr (The Watermark Press, 2007)
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