Art, Architecture and Style in Old Shanghai - Anne Haworth BA (Hons)

The lecture follows Shanghai's history through

its art and architecture, a potent hybrid of East

and West. Once known as The Paris of the

East, Shanghai developed as a Treaty Port

after the 19th century Opium Wars, when

imposing banks, offices or grand houses in the

classical or gothic style were built by

representatives of Western trading companies.

These contrasted with the humble yet

Apicturesque dwellings for local Chinese.

Shanghai's heyday came in the 1930s, when

the city was populated by White Russian

emigrés, Jewish refugees, gangsters and sing-

song girls and when stylish apartment blocks

and hotels were built in a glamorous Art Deco

style. The Western-style Bund with its famous

Peace Hotel built by Victor Sassoon

represents this heady fusion of cultures. Much

original architecture survived up to the 1990s,

when the city emerged as a major Asian

financial centre, dominated by glittering

skyscrapers and with a vibrant contemporary

art market. Original photographs of traditional

buildings taken by me in 1995 and 1996 are

included, to give a flavour of ‘Old Shanghai’.

Most of these buildings have since been

demolished in the city’s rapid modernisation.

Anne Haworth Anne is a Lecturer at the V&A. Guide for private tours of the State Rooms and The Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace. Lecturer in British Painting for American students resident in London. In Autumn 2002, catalogued collection of Chinese porcelain at Kensington Palace. From 2002 to 2005, a committee member of the French Porcelain Society. From 1995 to 2002, was resident in Shanghai, China, visited ancient kiln sites and lectured to expatriate groups. From 1981 to 1995, trained and became a senior ceramics specialist at Christie's and Bonhams head offices.