User:Edith yangyang

Taikang Road in Shanghai
This is a 420-metre-long old street in Shanghai’s city center. Although it looks old in the downtown, it appears a distinctive Shanghai scene with buildings in Chinese and foreign styles standing on both sides.

These buildings constituted old lanes, including dwellings in Qing Dynasty, Shanghai’s Stone Gate Houses, new lane houses, buildings in English style, as well as factories located in lanes. This street has concentrated Shanghai’s civic scene from a small fishing village to opening as an important port. It has recorded the history of national processing enterprises developing from the lane factories.

Before 1998, Taikang Road was only a street market. In September that year, the government of Luwan District, where this street locates in, redefined Taikang Road and rented out the empty factories. The new concept, which has successfully attracted artists, architects and designers from England, America, Australia and Denmark...to come here to begin their undertakings with those from China, is to replace old factories, warehouses and dwellings with studios, galleries and exhibition rooms.

It is now a cultural creative base, an integration of history and modern, human and environment, form and function, economic and social development, as well as a multi-cultural international community.

Today, as is called ‘silicon valley of visual industry’ by media, Taikang Road has its own features.

1.Many buildings with old-Shanghai’s special characteristics are conserved;

2.A new vision and art design center, the main body of which is artists, has been established;

3.This street has become a new growth pole of the development of Shanghai’s knowledge-based economy.

After replacement and regeneration, Taikang Road still belongs to citizen, instead of a tourism spot with affectation. It contains multivariate places, such as clay modeling studio, art design company, costume design company, atelier, photographic studio, architecture design studio, interior design studio, publishing house, advertisement company, art gallery, gym, martial arts studio, bookstore, curiosity shop, costume shop, cafes, bar, recreation center, etc. All kinds of people with different kinds of interests and knowledge backgrounds can find their understandings here.

Hiding behind the busy main roads around, Taikang Road appears a quiet and relaxing living scene. It is not only a micro-museum of China’s modern industry, but also an exhibition of modern life style.