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It's a tiny village that's home to just 380 households with 1,520 people, but Huaxi Village, supposedly the richest village in the People's Republic, now has a skyscraper to call its own. more ›

Part III of an ongoing series taking a closer look at all of Shanghai's 155 "important heritage sites" that are currently unprotected. Here are the locations in Luwan (French Concession!) and Jiading Districts - which housed the creator of the Chinese alphabet (bopomofo!), the poor discarded second wife of Chiang Kai-shek, and China's best art forger. more ›

Yesterday, Shanghai Daily reported that there were 155 historically significant homes in the city that are currently unprotected. These houses were previously used by Shanghai's most influential politicians, industrial tycoons, scholars and such, but are now in a dilapidated state (though, luckily, not yet torn down). Interestingly, many Chinese newspapers printed out exactly which 155 homes these were, so I thought I'd document them. more ›

Spotted by Dinglespeaks:
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While they've got one up on Shanghai for at least meaning to fell their tower, this demolition fail in Liuzhou, Guangxi Province is still pretty insane. The planned explosion was supposed to reduce the tower into a contained heap of rubble. Instead, it split the whole thing in half, causing one side to fall over and the other side to lean like it was in Pisa. Liuzhou residents didn't seem alarmed. more ›

In case you were keeping score, Google three enterprising gentlemen have put together a Google map that allows you to track ongoing skyscraper projects in and around Shanghai. more ›

The China Daily has issued a damning verdict on the construction of the new 632 meter Shanghai Tower — soon to be China's tallest skyscraper. It says that with the new tower, "blind worship and race for skyscrapers has reached a new high" and that the 121 storey tower will be a "milestone in turning Shanghai into a less pleasant concrete jungle". The opinion piece (God knows who it was written by as no byline was supplied) then sought to substantiate with a litany of reasons why the Shanghai Tower would be a bad idea: (1) Shanghai is sinking, and a new skyscraper isn't going to help; (2) Traffic in Lujiazui is congested enough and a new building is going to make rush hours all the more "nightmarish"; (3) The "urban heat island effect" is going to make Shanghai feel even more like a sauna in summers; (4) Skyscrapers are vulnerable to attacks and disasters; (5) The economic risk of building the Shanghai Tower will be shared by various state-owned enterprises and the money could be "better spent elsewhere"; (6) Shanghai should instead save its old buildings from demolition; (7) Shanghai's public transportation sucks. Why not spend more money there? (8) It also has the fastest graying population in China and should build more facilities to cater to the elderly. In conclusion, China Daily judged super skyscrapers like the Shanghai Tower to be "not a priority for Shanghai" and that it "could cause more harm than add to its glamor". Such words of wisdom. more ›

Construction started Saturday on the Shanghai Tower, Shanghai's next "tallest building". At 632m tall and with 138 floors, it checks in with a price tag of $2.2 billion USD, and will take six years to build. By comparison, its next-door neighbor, the Jinmao Tower, is 421m tall, while the still-brand-spankin' new World Financial Center is tops out at "only" 492m. The Shanghai Tower will, obviously, be the tallest building in China when it is completed. more ›

While searching the web for Tianma Shan, we stumbled upon this helpful site by Robin Zhang, "the software designer of JetPhoto." Clicking around a bit, we found this neat panorama of the University of Shanghai (沪江大学) in the 1920s. We also found these current photos of the old University of Shanghai buildings, which are now part of the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology [official site | map] in Yangpu District on the Huangpu River. We found this all kind of interesting — we had never heard of the University of Shanghai, which was founded in 1906. We probably should have, since we have a friend who recently graduated from USST. Here's what she said: more ›

A giant device specially designed for opening sealed bottles otherwise known as the Shanghai World Financial Center has been named the world's "Best Tall Building" this year by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. The last time this device made the news was in January when a certain city blog broke the news that a horde of misbehaving monkeys had scaled the giant bottle opener illegally. The monkeys managed to flee the country before police caught up with them. more ›

Shanghai-based blogger Elaine Chow plunks down 150 kuai and writes, "It took one last elevator to bring me up those three final levels. This time, as I stepped out of the elevator and into the walkway, it was hard not to gasp." Read it all here. And read all of Elaine's Gizmodo posts here. more ›

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). more ›

Photo from Julien & Gwladys more ›

• In a Beijing-inspired move to reduce traffic, Shanghai civil servants will not be allowed to drive their cars on certain days of the week, decided according to their cars' license plate numbers.
• This Tuesday, government officials declared that more than RMB 4 billion will be invested in a move to improve Pudong New Area, the site for the 2010 World Expo. Among other measures, 200 square meters in 25 old neighborhoods will be "reconstructed", ie., torn down and replaced with skyscrapers.
• In a crackdown this Thursday cabbies who refused to drive customers to destinations in the Lujiazui area were named and shamed, as well as fined and cut off from work for 15 days. Some taxi drivers have avoided driving in this area since the distances are considered too short or because traffic is slow.

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 Tongji University. It will be designed to look like a coiled dragon, the architects said. At its completion, the building will be 118 stories high and 79m taller than China's former tallest building, the Taipei 101, currently the world's tallest building. more ›

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 Shanghai Daily), scheduled for completion within the next 7-10 years. Neville Mars, a Dutch architect in Beijing interviewed by the New Yorker, believes that the central government's approach towards architecture is dangerous:

The Chinese appear to be in control, but it is really moving too fast for anyone.

See any familiar buildings in the picture? more ›

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 ›

A group of Shanghai residents who had applied to the government for the right to hold an anti-maglev protest were rejected by the government. Despite this, small numbers of them intended to go on another "walk" in order to publicly air their grievances. This time, they were stopped by some other residents. According to this AP article, this is what happened:

Residents in armbands used a megaphone to warn people not to "linger here too long," to avoid problems with the police, who had rejected their petition to hold a protest march against the magnetic levitation, or maglev, train.

Take a walk down Panyu (Fanyu) Lu from the Film Art Centre and you will soon pass by the SH508 restaurant. It occupies a slaughtered renovated colonial mansion adorned with a huge neon sign. Unknown to the proprietors, reviewers and most of the customers, this is actually the former family home of British writer J.G. Ballard. more ›

Not too surprising, we suppose. They broke ground on this at the expo site today, More from the Shanghai Daily: more ›