JG Ballard’s Home Well and Truly Gutted Now
Posted: April 7th, 2010 | 4 Comments »Popped round to see just how total the interior devastation was to the former home of JG Ballard – it’s entrance is now on Panyu Road (Columbia Road) but was originally on Amherst Road (now Xinhua Road). As I noted in a post before Malcolm Moore, the Daily Telegraph’s man in Shanghai, uploaded a video of the destruction a while back. Well, the interior is now completely gone – entirely ripped out, concreted over and when I was there the other day plenty of old timber was being ripped out too. All the old doors have also been taken off and thrown out. Additionally, all the old roof tiles are gone and a new concrete/brick structure erected to the right of the original frame of the building.
So that’s Ballard’s old house house then – fucked!
A damn shame… I was lucky to visit the house and Lunghua in 2007 and receive a letter from Ballard commenting on my adventures. You can read it all on my JGB website. Speaking of that, if you have any extra photos you’d like to share, I’m organizing a page of all the reportage on this event. Great work!
I hate to be a vulture, and I know I’m not the only one, but I wish I had some money, a truck and a warehouse to go around picking up some of that “trash”. I’d kill for the door to JG Ballard’s childhood home… I’d kill even more to have them f-n leave it where it was.
It’s ok – when talking of architectural crimes conducted by philistines you can swear on this blog
Well, although you couldn’t save his Shanghai house from the grips of the developers, perhaps you might like to try with his house in Shepperton:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jul/17/j-g-ballard-former-home