The Great World Refurbishment – Partially Unveiled

I posted back last August on the ongoing refurbishment of the old Great World Amusement Centre on Xizang Middle Road (Thibet Road), so well known from many an old Shanghai novel, movie and of course Joseph von Sternberg’s legendary description in his Fun in a Chinese Laundry. For pictures of how it originally looked and descriptions etc see that post here. In recent years the Great World had rather fallen into a sorry state – not so much in terms of the building but it was rather dwarfed by the Yanan Expressway and the new park opposite. People went past all day in taxis and cars and paid it little attention, it’s ‘steeple’ popping briefly into their view. It was home to a rather poor acrobatic show and in need of a general tarting up.It’s been closed for 18 months or so with a lot of work going on. No chance to get inside yet, indeed peering through the windows it looks as if the interior is yet to be done.

However, in terms of the exterior, and by the generally abysmal standards of what passes for restoration and refurbishment in shanghai these days (i.e. gutting or bulldozers invariably) it doesn’t look too bad. From a distance at least as these pictures show – up close the window frames look rather cheap while the fresh coat of paint may not make it more than a winter or two – it’s the usual thin cream gruel served up to so many buildings in Shanghai in the pre-EXPO slap up. But things could have have been far, far worse – the restoration could have been much worse and we could well have ended up with yet another 50 storey example of Communist and property developer penis envy all too easily.

Anyway, here’s some photos now that the ghastly generic Haibao nonsense hoardings have mostly come down. Note that the far right of the building at the junction of Xizang Road and Ninghai Road (Thibet Road and Rue Wagner), for a length of about six windows or so, is a new addition and though looked initially as if it might be jarring actually seems to fit relatively seamlessly.