DISTANCE: 2.5km (1.5 miles)
TIME: A full day
START: People’s Park
END: Park Hotel
POINTS TO NOTE: Take the metro to People’s Square to reach the start (it’s the main interchange, so you can take any number of lines) or ask a taxi to drop you at the park entrance on Nanjing Road. This museum-laden route is ideal for art- and culture-lovers, and anyone on a rainy day.
People’s Square is at the very heart of Shanghai, its exact centre and its showcase, home to world-class museums, a theatre, five-star hotels and the imposing City Hall in the middle of it all. The buildings, all raised in the late 1990s and each one a significant architectural statement, seem to have been lifted from a futuristic urban planner’s utopia. They also symbolise Shanghai’s arrival as a city that can compete on its own merit on the world stage.
Although there is little in People’s Square itself to remind you of the past, this was the Shanghai Racecourse, so brazenly bourgeois and decadent that it had to be razed and paved over for proletarian Shanghai. Here, millionaires would ride their steeds and their wives would wager fans and sun-bonnets because betting money was considered to vulgar. The wartime Japanese used the racetrack as a holding camp and the post-war Kuomintang government turned it into a sports arena. By 1952, the new Communist government had paved over part of the racetrack and turned the rest into a park for recreation. Today, the square’s buildings – each one an architectural achievement – symbolise the economic and cultural progress of modern Shanghai.
Shanghai Art Museum
David Shen Kai/Apa Publications
T’ai chi in People’s Park
David Shen Kai/Apa Publications
People’s Park
Enter People’s Park 1 [map] (Renmin Gongyuan; 6am–6pm; free) from the north (Nanjing Road) or east (People’s Square metro station). The building of modern Shanghai has encroached on the park, reducing its size, but it remains a lush oasis in the heart of the city with pretty tree-lined paths, a small lake and rock gardens. Come on a Sunday and you may see parents matchmaking for their adult children, clutching photos, posters and CVs in the hope of pairing them off.
Art centres
Follow the signs to the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) 2 [map] (Shanghai Dangdai Yishu Guan; 231 Nanjing Road West, in People’s Park; www.mocashanghai.org; daily 9am–6pm, subject to change – confirm hours for each exhibition on the website; charge). The city’s first independent contemporary art museum features both international and Chinese contemporary works. Despite its relatively small size, MoCA shows some of the more cutting-edge, thought-provoking modern art in the city. Exhibitions, which change every two months, are on the first two floors of the three-storey glass structure, while a restaurant with an outdoor terrace overlooking the park is on the third.
Exit the park on Nanjing Road and head west through the imposing gates of the 1933 Shanghai Race Club building. The elegant neoclassical building with its distinctive stone clock tower once marked the racecourse’s finishing straight. Look for the ‘SRC’ engraved over the building’s entrance and the horse heads on the ironwork banisters. This was the former home of the Shanghai Art Museum until it moved to the larger Power Station of Art in 2013, and while much of the building presently stands empty, you can head past the surly guards and take the lift to Kathleen’s 5, see 1, on the rooftop – a good spot for lunch or a drink with great views over People’s Square.
From here, walk south along Huangpi Road, passing the 60-storey Tomorrow Square tower, a space-age structure that twists on its own axis two-thirds of its way up, then slims into a hollow pinnacle that glows different colours by night. The cosy JW Marriott hotel library on the 60th floor is recognised as the world’s highest by the Guinness World Records.
A little further along Huangpi Road, you can stop at Wagas, see 2, in Central Plaza for a sandwich or coffee, or head next door to chic cocktail lounge Constellation, see 3, if you’re feeling in the mood for something a little stronger.
Continue to People’s Avenue and the Shanghai Grand Theatre 3 [map] (Shanghai Dajuyuan; 300 People’s Avenue; tickets: 6372 3833; www.shgtheatre.com; tours Mon 9–11am; charge). Designed by French architect Jean-Marie Charpentier, the futuristic glass confection has flamboyantly upturned eaves, mimicking a traditional Chinese roof. Dubbed the ‘Crystal Palace’ by locals, the 1,800-seat theatre hosts a packed season of ballet, classical music and opera, some imported and some local. The Monday tours are a great way to get an insider’s look at the theatre. Or if you can, catch a performance here to appreciate the venue’s excellent acoustics.
Shanghai Urban Planning Centre
Continue east along People’s Avenue, past Shanghai City Hall (which will almost certainly interfere with your mobile phone reception) to the Shanghai Urban Planning Centre 4 [map] (Shanghai Chengshi Guihua Guan; 100 People’s Avenue; www.supec.org; Tue–Sun 9am–5pm [last entrance at 4pm]; charge, extra with audio guide) to make some sense of urban Shanghai. The museum’s highlights are on the third floor: the remarkable 500 sq m (5,380 sq ft) scale model of Shanghai depicts every building over six storeys high, including ones as yet unbuilt. Also on this floor is the not-to-be-missed Journey of Wonder in Shanghai, a 360-degree movie that takes the audience on a bird’s-eye flight across the city. For another excellent view, the top-floor café – which is almost always empty – has wonderful views across People’s Square.
Traditional boats in Shanghai Museum
David Shen Kai/Apa Publications
Historic artefacts and artwork fill the Shanghai Museum
Ryan Pyle/Apa Publications
The bold exterior of the Urban Planning Centre
Ryan Pyle/Apa Publications
From the Urban Planning Centre, find the underground passageway that will take you to the south side of People’s Avenue; this passage was actually one of numerous bomb shelters built in the 1960s in the aftermath of the Sino-Soviet split, when the country lived in fear of a Soviet invasion. From here you can follow the signs to the Shanghai Museum 5 [map] (Shanghai Bowuguan; 201 People’s Avenue; www.shanghaimuseum.net; daily 9am–5pm [last entry 4pm]; free, charge for Acoustiguide rental plus deposit). Cross the landscaped plaza and pass the soaring musical fountain – full of kids trying to cool off in summer – to reach the distinctive round, granite building.
This is probably the best museum in the country. Shaped like a ding (a traditional cooking vessel), it focuses on the arts and crafts of China in its 11 permanent galleries, arranged thematically across four floors. Be sure to visit the Ancient Bronze Gallery, the Ancient Chinese Ceramic Gallery, which traces this born-in-China craft from the Neolithic Yellow River cultures to the Qing Dynasty. Other must-sees include the nation’s largest collection of Chinese paintings in the Chinese Painting Gallery and the colourful Chinese Minorities Nationalities Gallery. Allow at least a couple of hours here.
László Hudec
László Hudec (1893–1958) was already a chartered architect when, as a lieutenant in the Austro-Hungarian army, he was taken prisoner by the Russian army and sent to a Siberian prison camp. Hudec eventually escaped and made his way to Shanghai, where he found work with the American architectural firm RA Curry. There, he designed dozens of important buildings, including the American Club and the Normandie ISS Apartments. But his real masterpieces were created after 1925, when he set up his own firm. Inspired by the modernist architecture of New York, Hudec designed some of Shanghai’s most innovative buildings, three of which are within a few metres of each other along Nanjing Road and Xizang (Tibet) Road: the Art Deco Grand Theatre cinema, the Park Hotel and the Moore Church. Today, he is considered Shanghai’s master architect.
Highlights from the Golden Age
Like a brand-new portrait set within an antique frame, the ultra-modern core of Shanghai is surrounded by the legends that defined old Shanghai: its tallest building, best theatre and wildest entertainment. Leave the museum via the south entrance and cross busy Yan’an Road to the elegant neoclassical Shanghai Concert Hall (Shanghai Yinyueting). Built in 1930 as the Nanking Theatre, the building was uprooted in 2004, on the occasion of its 75th anniversary, and slowly moved 66.46 metres southeast on special rollers to make way for an extension of the Yan’an highway. The cost of shifting it out of harm’s way was a cool RMB150 million. In its new position, it’s today home to the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra.
Head east to the intersection with Tibet Road, and to the wedding-cake building that dominates the corner: the legendary Great World (Da Shijie), controlled in the 1930s by Huang Jinrong (‘Pockmarked Huang’), the head of the Concession’s detective squad and a member of Shanghai’s underworld Green Gang. In its heyday, the building was filled with entertainment of a mostly unsavoury nature, an endless array of smoky gambling dens, dance halls and the infamous ‘staircase to nowhere’ (where desperate souls could take the quick way out). Today, the Great World is locked up tight, awaiting a new lease of life.
Next door, the Chinese YMCA building, with its upturned eaves and ornate halls, is a beautiful example of the Sino-Western design fusion that is so distinctively Shanghai.
Walk back across Yan’an Road, pausing to admire the former Grand Hotel at No. 120, a grand edifice that is now a ‘Worker’s Cultural Palace’, a legacy of the 1950s when resources formerly reserved for the moneyed classes were made available to the new masters of New China – the working classes.
If you’re hungry, head to mega mall Raffles City, see 4, page page 98, which dominates this block of Xizang (Tibet) Road and seems to be permanently packed with shoppers at any time of day. Head up to the sixth floor, where a food court offers a choice of Asian and Western delicacies.
Continue back to Moore Church 6 [map] (Mu’en Tang; 316 Xizang Road; services Sun 7.30am, 9am, 2pm, 7pm). The 1931 church, named after the Texas Methodist who donated funds for its construction, was built by innovative architect László Hudec and includes a surprising undulating effect in the exterior brickwork. Used as a middle school throughout the Cultural Revolution, it was the first church in Shanghai to reopen in the late 1970s and the first to consecrate bishops (in 1988).
Return north then west on Nanjing Road to the line of gracious old buildings that once defined progressive Shanghai. When the eight-storey Pacific Hotel (Jinmen Dajiudian, 108 Nanjing Road West) was built in 1924 as the Union Insurance Building, it was the tallest building in the city, and its bell tower was used by ships for navigation. Just west of the hotel is the Shanghai Sports Club, formerly the International YMCA (Chinese residents had to use the Chinese YMCA). Some of the remaining ‘Old Shanghailanders’ remember attending afternoon tea dances in the second-floor ballroom; local residents continued this tradition until 2010, when the ballroom was turned into an exhibition hall.
‘Zero Center Point’ in the Park Hotel lobby
David Shen Kai/Apa Publications
Interior of the Grand Theatre
David Shen Kai/Apa Publications
The next building down is the Park Hotel 7 [map] (Guoji Fandian; 170 Nanjing Road West), the 24-storey Hudec masterpiece that inspired architect IM Pei during his 1940s childhood. Built in 1934 for the Joint Savings Society, it was Shanghai’s tallest and most advanced building until the 1980s. Designed in art deco style and clad in dark Taishan brick, this pioneering deluxe hotel once featured a rooftop nightclub overlooking the Shanghai Racecourse. Sepia-tinted photos of those halcyon days hang around the second-floor history gallery. In 1957, the rooftop flagpole was classified as Shanghai’s official geographical centre. Sadly, little of the original Art Deco interior survives.
Better to venture into the Grand Cinema 216 Nanjing Road West) next door, also Hudec’s handiwork, to see its lively Art Deco lobby. Originally opened in 1933 and named the Grand Theatre, the 2,000-seat cinema was the finest of its time in China. For a glimpse of its past, the History Walk (entrance at 248 Nanjing Road West; no charge) tells the Grand’s often controversial history through photos, newspaper ads and movie clips.
Food and Drink
5th Floor, Shanghai Art Museum, 325 Nanjing Road West; tel: 6327 2221; www.kathleens5.com.cn; daily 10.30am–midnight; $$$
Perched atop the Shanghai Art Museum, Kathleen’s 5 sits just under the old clock tower and offers spectacular views over People’s Square from an outdoor terrace and glassed-in dining room. The restaurant serves continental cuisine, drinks and tea all day long.
227 Huangpi Road (N); tel: 5375 2758; daily 7am–10pm; $$
This home-grown Shanghai brand is popular for its fresh, healthy menu of sandwiches, salads, pastas, home-made desserts and smoothies – plus free WiFi on tap. It’s a good spot for a quick, tasty meal or to pick up a coffee to sip as you sightsee.
251 Huangpi Road (N); tel: 5375 2712; daily 7pm–2am; $$$
Japanese style cocktail lounge with retro Art Deco interiors and suited bartenders who concoct some of Shanghai’s finest mixed drinks.
268 Central Xizang Road; daily 10am–8pm; $
Raffles City is a Singapore brand, and its 6th-floor mega food court is a Singapore-style one, with a huge array of stalls lining the perimeter. Both Asian and Western cuisine is available here, from sushi to wontons, burgers to fresh juices.