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With less than a year left to the Expo, Shanghai is getting ready to show off its splendor to the expected hordes of visitors. We're sure that no one staying here can have managed to escape the Haibaos that have been popping up all over town, or the many renovations under hand.
In Hongkou, at Zhoujiazui Road we came across what we suspect is another Expo-related move meant to smarten up old lane houses: Fake brick facades, for that proper Shanghai look.
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They must have copied the romans who built many of their buildings with fake stone outer layer but with a cement core. Oh, so sorry, when whities do it, its not called fake.
Facades are a basic fact of architecture. Painting cheesy bricks on the side of lane housing is not the same thing, especially as it looks much worse that standard lane housing. A comparison to aluminum siding would be more apt.
reminds me of the toilet tiles used in the 1990's for the "modern" buildings, cute and cheesy ;) well...maybe not cute
I am with you, Liliac, if you were referring to those cheap mosaic exterior in various neutral colors...yuck!
(We once ran into a couple of buildings like that in Tokyo and got a good laugh: but over there they were mercifully few.
Another thing that got on my nerve whenever I venture out to Shanghai's suburbs is the blue- or green-tinted windows in so many residential buildings. Make the building look, well, blind; you half expect the roof to bent forward with a sightless wink, and start to tell your fortune.