Could today's Beijing be what New York City was at the turn of the 20th Century? According to this article in Vanity Fair, there are certainly many similarities to draw upon. Kurt Andersen starts off noting the correspondences between population growth and development of city infrastructure. In 1904 New York's first subway line opened. Likewise, Beijing's new subway system is spreading out at a breathtaking pace (a point which subway fanatic and Beijingologist, David Feng,......

30th floor view taken by Jakob Montrasio More photos on the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site (and here).......

It's finally coming! The "big one" eagerly predicted by Shanghaiist in 2006 — China's tallest building will begin construction this year in Shanghai. At 580m, the Shanghai Center will top a triangle of impressive towers with the 420-meter-high Jin Mao Tower and the 492-meter-high Shanghai World Financial Center in the Lujiazui district of Pudong. The building will be designed by Gensler, a U.S. firm, in conjunction with the Shanghai-based Architectural Design & Research Institute of......

With Rem Koolhaas's eagerly-awaited CCTV headquarters nearing completion in Beijing, many are considering the role of architecture in China's quest for status as a world power. Great buildings have always played a role in a regime's strength and prestige, and for the last decade China's central government has been hellbent on constructing impressive city skylines. Shanghai's own horizon has progressed at a breakneck pace, with its latest undertaking, Xintiandi II, (dubbed Xintiandi's "big sister" by......

Photo from here [h/t to Micah Sittig] See any familiar buildings in the picture? Share with us how you see Shanghai, or China! Post your photos on Flickr, tag them with "shanghaiist", and we'll select one favorite image per day. Or you can simply email your photos to photos at shanghaiist.com.......

More green spaces, easier access to the promenade… All could be built in time for the World Expo in 2010. American urban design and architecture firm Chan Krieger Sieniewicz was chosen by the town to revamp its former international concession port area. The Huangpu River and the heart of the city will be “reconciled.” Head of project Liang Zhao explains that today, the Bund buildings are separated from the water by Zhongshan Road –......

Once upon a time, way back in the days when the Song dynasty discovered oil in Hangzhou* and moved south, a nearby fishing community called Hutu (also sometimes called Hudu) found itself strategically situated and soon became home to several the bigwigs from up north. After a short time, the fishers became traders and the traders became pajama-wearin' xiao long bao-guzzlin' urbanites. All was peaceful for a time in Shanghai, as Hutu became known, but......

In the latest episode of the Hard Hat Show, host Mia Li visits the 600 year old Xiefangde Temple, which was to have been disassembled and rebuilt elsewhere, but has now been ruined beyond salvation to make way for a new apartment complex.......

According to the Xinmin Evening Post, on Sunday afternoon the southern half of the historic Waibaidu Bridge will be going to Pudong for repairs, followed by its northern half later this week. The former Garden Bridge was closed to all traffic on February 29th and workers have been hard at work preparing the bridge for tomorrow's trip. At approximately 9:30 in the morning when the tide is at its lowest point, a barge will be......

We passed by the Huxi Mosque on Changde Lu the other day, walked around and loved it. Here's some history of the mosque that we found on ChinaCulture.org:The Huxi Mosque is one of the famous mosques in Shanghai City. It was originally called Yaoshuinong Mosque and located at Xikang Road, and moved to Changde Road in April 1992. In 1914, Moslem paupers from Hubei, Shandong, Henan, and Anhui provinces lived together in the area near......

Photo by Sypro Share with us how you see Shanghai, or China! Post your photos on Flickr, tag them with "shanghaiist", and we'll select one favorite image per day. Or you can simply email your photos to photos at shanghaiist.com.......

You may have walked past the Holy Trinity Cathedral before and not even known it. The church has been under construction for a couple of years now and protected from public view by the ever-cunning big cement construction wall. But it's still there, awaiting its impending resurrection amid a chorus of jackhammers. Completed in 1869, the Holy Trinity remains one of the oldest western-style buildings still standing in Shanghai. Its stunning design features the......

Photo of the Shanghai Grand Theatre with the JW Marriott in the background by Sypro Share with us how you see Shanghai, or China! Post your photos on Flickr, tag them with "shanghaiist", and we'll select one favorite image per day. Or you can simply email your photos to photos at shanghaiist.com.......

We told you about Shanghai's skyscraper envy. Now, the World Financial Center has barely been completed but our wonderful city has already announced plans for yet another skyscraper that will dwarf it. Two days ago, the all-authoritative Xinhua produly proclaimed that the new building, which is to be named Shanghai Center (we are unsure if this has any relation to the existing Shanghai Center) will be the world's tallest at 580 meters and 118......

By Wm Patrick Cranley The 1907 Garden Bridge (in Chinese, the Waibaidu Qiao) is one of those rarest of historic treasures in Shanghai: an original structure that is still being used for the same purpose for which it was built. Imagine our shock, then, when we read recently that the Garden Bridge was to “vanish.” No need to panic. It turns out that the bridge will disappear for one year for repairs. In fact, this......

Photo from Yansi Share with us how you see Shanghai, or China! Post your photos on Flickr, tag them with "shanghaiist", and we'll select one favorite image per day. Or you can simply email your photos to photos at shanghaiist.com.......

The WFC may not be open to visitors yet, but that has not stopped some friends of ours crazy laowai's from making their way past security guards to get to the top of the building. On several occassions they were stopped by the vigilant guards, but they tried and tried again — and, at crazy hours, too, like 5 in the morning! Climbing the 101 flight of stairs took... erm... forever... but they were......

Just off the northern edge of Fuxing Park, this unusual building was the original French Club (le Cercle Francais Sportif) circa 1904. Later it was moved what is now the Okura Garden Hotel (and much later moved to Cafe Montmartre). For a while this was the French Concession's most prestigious public high school, Le College Francais. You can still see the monogram 'CFS' cast into the wrought-iron railing of the main staircase. There's also some......

By Derek Sandhaus From time to time we are overcome by curiosity and decide to wander into private buildings uninvited. Sometimes this requires offering the doorman cigarettes. Other times it's as easy as someone leaving the door unlocked. This week fortune smiled in the form of a work team sloppily leaving the door of the Russian Orthodox Mission Church wide open. You may already be familiar with the Mission Church sometimes referred to as Our......

Not too surprising, we suppose. They broke ground on this at the expo site today, More from the Shanghai Daily: The structure is named as "the crown of the East" as its most distinct feature is the roof. It will be made of traditional dougong brackets, which have a history of more than 2,000 years. ... China Pavilion's design was chosen from 344 entries submitted from all over the world and revised by experts, the......

You seriously have to give it to architects in Shanghai for coming up with something that catches your eye. It may not work all the time, but it will be at least different from anything else you have seen before. Photo from Shanghaiist's Chris Billman. Share with us how you see Shanghai, or China! Simply post your photos on Flickr, tag them with "shanghaiist", and we'll select one favorite image per day. Or you......

The 3rd annual Shanghai International Creative Industry Week is going on through Wednesday the 21st. We went to opening night last Thursday and were able to get a sneak peek into the 1933 building mentioned a few posts back, where some of the exhibitions were still being touched up at the last minute. One of the purposes of the SICIW is to bring together art and design entities from all over the world into one......

The 74 year old slaughterhouse that stands on 10 Shajing Road (虹口区沙泾路10号) in Hongkou has been remade as 1933, a lifestyle and design center. Some of the brains behind this new development include Paul Liu, formerly of Three on the Bund, and David Laris, owner of his eponymous restaurant also at Three. Has any Shanghaiist been there yet? Photo from Jake in Shanghai......

Photo from meckleychina: "The slender, triangular, historic Capetown Apartments on Wukang Lu." Share with us how you see Shanghai, or China! Simply post your photos on Flickr, tag them with "shanghaiist", and we'll select one favorite image per day. Or you can simply email your photos to photos[at]shanghaiist.com.......

Who is Yacht ? Yacht, a musician you will love like a rainbow after the rain, or a lollipop after visiting the dentist. Any one remember the Blow? Well, the Blow’s last 2 albums was 90% Yacht and Yacht is made up of one man….the multi – talented Jona Bochtolt. Happy, positive rainbow music on speed, Yacht might currently be best known as that guy who used to be in the Blow or for......

The Xujiahui Cathedral (徐家汇天主教堂), otherwise known as the St. Ignatius Cathedral of Shanghai (聖依納爵主教座堂) is lit up especially for the Special Olympics. From Wikipedia:Designed by English architect William Doyle, and built by French Jesuits between 1905 and 1910, it is said to have once been known as "the grandest cathedral in the Far East." It can accommodate 2,500 worshippers at the same time. In 1966, at the opening of the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards......

Photo taken at a temple site in the beautiful town of Dali, Yunnan Province, by staffh Share with us how you see Shanghai, or China! Simply post your photos on Flickr, tag them with "shanghaiist", and we'll select one favorite image per day. Or you can simply email your photos to photos[at]shanghaiist.com.......

If you thought you've had enough of crazy architectural styles in Shanghai, wait till you see this piano house in Huainan, Anhui. Inside the transparent violin is the staircase to the house upstairs. Apparently, the building has been built by the local government to draw interest to the newly developed area, but from what we can see, it almost looks like it was built in the *sshole of nowhere.......

From meckleychina:Building with art deco tower at Fujian Lu and Yan'an Dong Lu. Very cool art deco building with corner tower. The building butts right up against the pedestrian overpass of Yan'an Lu. With the always present Bund Center in the back left. Anyone know this building? Is it an office? bank? commercial? apartments? Share with us how you see Shanghai, or China! Simply post your photos on Flickr, tag them with "shanghaiist", and......

... and that is a conservative estimate, writes Bernie Leo of Shanghai Daily. We have to give it to him in the way that he succeeds to make a science out of the subject: Population figures for the city vary wildly but the latest I can find say we have 17 million permanent residents and four to five million migrants. Obviously not everyone is a spitter or expectorator. (And there is a difference. To spit......