Word: deco
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...Shanghai's architectural history-an East-West hybrid combining the modest sturdiness of a Chinese trading town with the showier Art Deco ambitions of the foreigners who began descending in the 19th century-is fast disappearing. Helping us remember this remarkable urban legacy before the last of the wrecking crews strikes is Canadian photographer Greg Girard, a longtime resident of China's largest metropolis, whose new book Phantom Shanghai was published last month. Many of the historic buildings that Girard documents-forlorn carcasses cowering below towers of concrete and glass-have already been demolished. Understanding this lends the photos...
...That poverty may be ubiquitous, but so is the energy. Teeming, corrugated-iron slums surround decaying Art Deco mansions. Lush bougainvilleas peek from behind high stone walls trimmed with barbed wire. Chapels hear confession in the middle of decadent shopping malls, and hand-painted billboards advertising movies like Brazen Women overlook vendors touting T-shirts that read JESUS OF NAZARETH. At stoplights, peddlers tap on your window proffering newspapers and Marlboro Reds, while children wave garish feather dusters and delicate lace handkerchiefs. And wherever you go, there is music, in the endless strips of "videoke" lounges, pouring forth from bars...
...with chef Philippe Belissent's menu, the intimate Belle Epoque restaurant and bar, all done up in jewel-toned velvet and silk, are now the perfect setting for a seduction. Every room is lush, but each room is unique: the tangerine and cream No. 36 features a mirrored Art Deco bed and dressing table once belonging to the French singer Mistinguett. The mahogany-laden No. 16 witnessed Wilde's demise and now displays a green-and-gold wallpaper duplicate of an engraving in his London dining room. At $336 to $974 a night, he wouldn't have been able...
...release of Erh's book was timed to coincide with one of the world's biggest architectural-appreciation gatherings-the annual Art Deco Weekend organized by the Miami Design Preservation League (MDPL). This year's event, held over three days in January, was entitled "East Meets West: Art Deco from Shanghai to Miami," and featured an exhibition of Erh's images of both cities. "Shanghai and Miami Beach share a great deal in common," explains the MDPL's spokesman Scott Timm. "They are both economic and business centers for their regions, represent a blending of cultures and both contain...
...hopes the spate of publicity generated overseas for Shanghai's Art Deco tradition might serve to boost his conservationist cause. But getting Shanghai itself to take notice is a slow process. A delegation of Shanghainese officials-representing government, urban planning, preservation and business development-attended the Miami event. "I invited them all to see the same exhibition in Shanghai, and they never came," says Erh. "It's a joke. I spent $3,750 of my own money to ship the pictures to Miami, when they could have seen them right here in Shanghai...