[This, and following images: Jianyeli, Shanghai]

The architecture of Shanghai did not develop along any set linear trajectory: it is a city “unstuck in time.” Beautiful French chateaus mimic styles from centuries earlier. Victorian villas stand side-by-side with international style modernism and art deco apartment towers. The Oriental Pearl – built in the 1990s – could have been an Expo centerpiece in the late 1950s (or a comic rocketship design in the ‘30s). Continue reading →