From Lane to Block: The Evolution of Shanghai’s Modern Apartments
Shanghai’s Hengshan-Fuxing (“Hengfu”) Roads Historic Protection Zone, a sprawling series of neighborhoods from the middle of the 19th and 20th centuries, is the city’s largest and most diverse residential urban area.
The 1920s and ’30s apartment buildings in Hengfu have stood for nearly a century and encompass a wide variety of architectural styles, from low-rise lane homes to modernist masterpieces that pioneered the city’s trend towards high-rise, collective living spaces. Together, they offer a rare glimpse of China’s early foray into modernity.
Generally, Shanghai apartments from this era can be categorized into three types: lane style, small building style, and block style.
Lane style apartments emerged earliest, with surviving examples dating from around 1900 featuring connected units with red, unadorned brick walls and verandas. By the 1930s, garden apartments had appeared, combining lane layouts with detached garden villa aesthetics. By the 1940s, this form evolved into larger, multi-building lane apartment complexes, such as Yuhua New Village off of Fumin Road.
The small building style, or mini apartment, is characterized by its compact size and idiosyncratic features. These apartments typically occupy fragmented, irregular streetside plots, with designs that emphasize adaptability according to the local environment. Essentially, they were developed to meet the needs of private landowners, aiming to maximize land use efficiency through meticulous planning.
But it’s block style apartments that first come to mind when locals think of pre-WWII Shanghai architecture. These buildings, typically found on the corners of intersecting streets, commonly have symmetrical zigzag or regular rectangular layouts. This design facilitates the methodical organization of each apartment’s space and facilities. The proliferation of block style apartments in the 1930s reflects the city’s economic prosperity during the decade preceding the Japanese occupation.
These examples of classic modern apartments were all in part influenced by contemporary Western urban culture, and embody a complex blend of retro and modern styles. During the 19th century, Western architects began creating apartments fit for urban dwelling, cloaked in neoclassical styles. These apartments integrated modern kitchen and bathroom facilities, urban family lifestyles, and mechanisms for urban renewal and redevelopment, with facades that nodded to Europe’s long history. Shanghai quickly adopted these concepts, but with a twist: The buildings incorporated decorative elements that blended traditional features from different cultural and geographical European regions, as well as various historical periods.
The King’s Lynn Apartments exemplify this approach. Constructed between 1927 and 1928, the approximately 2,720 square meters of floor space spread across six stories feature styles from both the Georgian and neoclassical eras. Designed by American architect Elliott Hazzard, the King’s Lynn Apartments’ facade utilizes dark brown, unglazed rough-faced bricks, known as Taishan bricks, and rectangular chestnut-colored wood windows. The ground-floor windows comprise arched sills, while upper floors have openings with white keystones and flat arches, presenting a dignified appearance with careful attention to detail.
Other modern apartments in the area fit into the Art Deco, Art Moderne (Streamline Moderne), or Modernist styles. The renowned French architect Alexandre Léonard was adept at realizing the first two; the latter, represented by the Georgia Apartments, is less common in existing buildings and often incorporates Art Deco techniques in the interiors.
The Changde Apartments, built in the Art Deco style, were home to renowned writer Eileen Chang from 1942 to 1947. In her essay “The Pleasure of Apartment Living,” Chang wrote: “More poetic souls than I may prefer to hear the gentle sound of pine needles or the roar of the sea as they lie in bed. As for me, I can only fall asleep to the clatter of trams.”
The Georgia Apartments, built in 1935 in the International style, feature a reinforced concrete structure with gray plaster walls and light-colored paint. However, the interior communal areas employ numerous Art Deco elements, such as understated elevator frames and flooring with colorful mosaics framed in black terrazzo, bringing a touch of elegant modernity.
Today, these apartments are urban treasures. But they were first and foremost havens of comfort and convenience for generations of residents — historical artifacts that preserve the rich tapestry of Shanghai’s past and present.
Liu Gang is an associate professor of architecture at Tongji University; archives and visuals courtesy of Xuhui District’s Bureau of Housing Security and House Property Administration.
Translator: Liu Qianyu; contributions: Tom Arnstein; editors: Elise Mak and Ding Yining.
