MARSHA LEDERMAN:
Shanghai's western veneer doesn't hide its Asian soul
March 27, 2006 | More from Marsha Lederman
Marsha Lederman is the national arts reporter for CBC Radio. She has been with the CBC for more than five years, and, among other assignments, has read news on Metro Morning, hosted Ontario Morning and ran the radio newsroom in Vancouver. Before joining the CBC, Marsha worked in private radio – ultimately hosting her own talk show in Toronto. Marsha is also a freelance writer and has been published in the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and the National Post, among other publications. She is a graduate of both Ryerson University and York University. She has a keen interest in architecture and would love to pursue it by one day building her own house – if she could only scrape together enough money for a down payment so she can stop renting.
In an awkward moment at a recent book launch for Building Shanghai, co-author Edward Denison was asked: "Is this an Asian city?"
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"Of course it is," he responded, with a nervous laugh. From an architectural perspective, it wasn't an outrageous question. While Shanghai is, of course, an Asian city socially and culturally – its buildings seem to tell a different story.
From the neo-classical and art deco colonial feel of the waterfront Bund – echoes from the 1800s when French, British and Americans settled in the bustling port – to the modern massive development of skyscrapers across the Huangpu River in Pudong, Shanghai looks very much like a western city. Chinese-style upward-curving roofs are so rare that they become instant photo opportunities for tourists.
 A busy street in Shanghai. (Lisa Khoo/CBC)
His interest in China's architecture dates to his days as a student. In his research, Choa found that cities in Imperial times formed a specific structural pattern: rectangular, with a north-south road, contained within a fortified enclosure. When he noticed that the Chinese character representing China is a rectangle with a north-south line running through it, he developed a theory.
A metaphor for development
 In 1930, Zhong Shan Road in the Shanghai Bund was a waterfront street housing most of the big banks and top-class hotels. (General Photographic Agency/Getty Images)
"And in all of the mess that you see in Shanghai, there is this simple diagram trying to get out."
Choa believes this formula has remained the basis for Shanghai's development – both the distinctly Chinese architecture that is disappearing and the western-feeling skyscrapers that are rapidly replacing it.
 Zhong Shan Road is still busy in 2006. (Lisa Khoo/CBC)
"You can't think of them as buildings," says Choa. "They are fortified walls."
Pass through an arch or gate and inside there is a private precinct, featuring a main lane (the axis), with narrow laneways shooting off it.
"You are neither in public or private; you are somewhere in between," says Choa. "This is very Chinese."
All the front doors face the same way – another throwback to ancient China.
"Originally, facing south was part of an orally translated tradition. We call it feng shui," says Choa. "You face south because good spirits come from the south."
Today, Shanghai law requires all buildings to face south – which may have more to do with sunlight than feng shui, but certainly draws on China's history.
Tourists take a boat through canals Friday, March 10, 2006 in the outskirts of Shanghai, where the ancient lane houses still exist. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
As the skyscrapers rise, the city seems to lose some of its Chinese feel.
But Choa says the buildings are deeply Chinese.
"They may look superficially very western but if you look carefully … they have landscape forming walls around the buildings. You can't get into the highrise building until you get through a gate," he points out. "So as modern as they look, they're functioning in a very, very Chinese way."
Western form, Chinese propriety
Driving through Pudong, which was completely undeveloped 20 years ago and is now as built up as Manhattan, Choa points to new skyscrapers that conform to his theory. They are hidden behind tall hedges. There are no shops on the outside. These are private worlds inside a fortress of trees.
A vagrant sleeps on a stone bench at the Bund on Feb. 21, 2006. While the city is booming, the China's State Development and Reform Commission says the urban income gap between rich and poor has widened to an alarming and unreasonable level. (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)
Chinese notions of how design can influence luck continue to have an impact on the city's architecture. For example, the design of the Shanghai World Financial Center was altered in mid-construction. A large circle planned for the top of the building became a point of contention. Some complained it was reminiscent of the Japanese flag – and seemed to symbolize Japan crushing China. The circle was changed to a square.
Tourists looking for an example of how contemporary architecture evokes ancient China can visit People's Park in the city centre. Choa says the square is arranged in the same way as the Imperial Chinese cities he once studied. The Shanghai Museum serves as the south gate to the compound. In the most important position – where the ancestral hall would have been – there is the seat of power: city hall.
"There is still the diagram, the very, very formal diagram, of the traditional Chinese courtyard, with a north-south axis, with a boundary along the perimeter," says Choa. "It's a few thousand years later, a completely different environment, but the symbols, the metaphors, are still very, very active."
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