Word is rolling round that my new book, Midnight in Peking: The True Story of a Brutal Murder in the Last Days of Peking, is out this summer. I’m supposed to being keeping quiet about it but a few early readers of proof copies have been talking about it on Facebook and elsewhere and now there’s this article in the China Daily on Penguin’s forthcoming China publishing programme which includes me, so I guess I can link to that without getting into trouble.
One for the real Shanghai architecture twitchers and Hongkou train spotters here!!
A bit of demolition (what else!) along Zhoujiazui Road (Point Road) and Gongping Road (Kung Ping Road) in Hongkou (Hongkew) – a block cleared revealing some Shanghai roof cross beam patterns for the architecturally curious.
What sounds like a potentially fascinating talk at the Beijing Bookworm this Wednesday
Wednesday 27 April
The Engineer and The Warlord – presented by Beijing Postcards
7.30pm
20/30rmb
Beijing Postcards shares fascinating footage and tales from the roaring 20s, where warlords shifted sides and assassinated each other as often as they changed concubines. Simon Gjeroe explores the complicated relationship between the engineer Robert Christensen and the warlord, Zhang Zoulin. Christensen documented the life and death of the hot-tempered former bandit who ruled Manchuria as his own.
Marco Polo, who we all thought was an Italian, a Venetian to be precise, appears to be a Croatian…according to the Croatians anyway. And Stepan Mesic, the former President of Croatia, claimed the Chinese asked him to open a new Marco Polo “Memorial Hall” in Yangzhou (more on that here should you be able to work up the enthusiasm – it looks about as historically rigorous as all those Zheng He “museums” and replica boats that have popped up all over in recent years since 1421massaged the Chinese nationalist soul).
Needless to say the Italians are not best pleased by this “hi-jacking” of their Marco by Croatian nationalists. Realising that they might have strayed into the dangerous waters of Italo-Balkan rivalry (not the sort of thing that ever ends well or without some bloodshed) the Chinese have now backtracked and say they only invited Mesic to attend, not to officiate. Still the ever tin eared local officials are adamant in their hope that the Memorial Hall will “boost and further strengthen Sino-Croatian trade and cultural ties” – obviously we all wish both Yangzhou and Zagreb well with that noble endeavour.
Following my last post on Range Road and the Settlement-Paoshan border I wonder if anyone knows what this building was formerly? It is on the southern side of Wujin Road (Range Road), close to the junction with Wusong Road (Woosung Road) and is most intriguing.
As you can see from the pictures below it is not a residential property but I’m not sure it was a theatre/cinema either. The window frames are gothic but not elaborate enough to be a church while the red brick is classic Settlement architecture a la GG Scott and any number of British inspired churches, railway stations or schools. I’m stumped…anyone with a deeper knowledge of Range Road please share….
The borders of the Shanghai International Settlement were always contentious – gangsters scuttled across them to evade capture and police argued over territory (heads up – Earnshaw Books are about to reprint EW Peters autobiography Shanghai Policeman from the 1930s which has several fascinating cases of cross border jurisdiction “issues”). To further complicate matters some roads extended from the Settlement to the north and west into Chinese territory – often these properties were owned by foreigners who paid the Shanghai Municipal Council rates for water and electricity. If trouble occurred they could arguably call upon the ratepayer funded Municipal Police too. Therefore, unsurprisingly, the borderlands of the Settlement became areas attracting a vast array of interesting characters – to the west the External Roads Area became better known as the “Badlands” while to the north-east some streets became The Trenches, home to some rather dubious bars and clubs and not a few low-end brothels.
There was also the border, close to the original railway station, between the north of the Settlement and Paoshan (now Boashan). Though, of course, destruction and redevelopment has been extensive around this area the strip of the former border road known as Range Road (now Wujin Road) still contains some great architecture and well-preserved buildings, though to the north of Range Road the destruction is almost total – so probably best to go see Range Road fairly soon if you’re at all interested!!
These lovely apartment buildings along Range Road between Wusong Road (Woosung Road) and Zhapu Road (Chapoo Road) were all constructed in the 1920s to an excellent standard. They still occupy both sides of the block and are in good condition still. Sadly the corner with Sichuan Road North (Szechuan Road North) has been cleared now on all four corners but was once apparently very impressive and the main road out of the Settlement into Paoshan.
Of course if you were a wanted criminal in the Settlement getting in the front door of these buildings and out the back and into Chinese territory basically meant you were free.
A last post from Singapore, and then it’s back to China again next week promise. But, like the Fullerton Bay Hotel I noted the other day, the Waterboat House is another new edition to decent heritage in Singapore. Though I’ve stayed at the nearby Fullerton Hotel (which seems to manage the Waterboat House) I’d never noticed the building before. And it is a building you should notice, previously occupied by the Port of Singapore Authority to sell fresh water to ships anchored in the habour it’s now the usual upmarket restaurant and that, but who cares, it looks good.The original building was a very modern 1919 structure designed by the legendary, and multi-generational, Singapore architects of Swan and Maclaren who’s roster of projects across several generations of the firm include Raffles, the Goodwood Park Hotel (then the Teutonia Club), plenty of churches, department stores and other structures across Singapore.
The Elias Building seems to have been restored a bit since I was last in Singapore and so merits a mention. Built in 1928 with three storeys, at the junction of Selegie Road and Middle Road, by the Jewish merchant. It is a lovely example of “stripped” neo-classical with a hint of art-deco from the architects Swan and Maclaren. The building would have been very imposing and modern in the 1920s. The prominent Star of David bas-relief also remains from the original structure and the Elias Building is one of several in Singapore still sporting the Star of David including the Maghain Aboth Synagogue on Warterloo Street. Worth a couple of pics:
