Word: deco
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Recording his city's rich architectural heritage has been a demoralizing task for Shanghainese photographer Deke Erh. While Art Deco buildings in Miami, New Zealand's Napier and even the Eritrean town of Asmara are lovingly tended, Shanghai has demolished scores of equally historic structures in its headlong rush for modernity. "I've been taking photographs of old Shanghai for 20 years, and I've continually seen these things torn down," says Erh. "But I still have hope. Even today, Shanghai has more Art Deco buildings than any other city in the world. If I didn't have hope...
...publication of Erh's self-funded new book Shanghai Art Deco is testament to the 47-year-old photographer's determination in the face of the city's merciless wrecking ball. In 320 pages and over 1,000 photographs, Erh and other photographers capture many of the city's surviving historic residences, hotels, cinemas and municipal buildings-creating a sweeping survey of the architectural and cultural treasures that could be threatened by relentless development. "When these buildings went up in the 1920s and '30s, a great deal of money and thought went into creating a beautiful city," says Erh. "Since...
...would like things to be as they once were. Emphasizing clean, uncluttered shapes and simplified lines to express the dynamism of the mechanical age, Art Deco first gained recognition in 1925 at the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris. Within a few years, its influence had spread to Shanghai, at a time when the "Paris of the East" was largely under the control of Western powers. With close to 4 million inhabitants, 1930s Shanghai was the fifth-largest city in the world and the most cosmopolitan place in China. To reflect...
...Shanghai Art Deco is the eighth collaboration by Erh and Johnston. Though their previous works, all celebrating and recording Western architectural influences on Chinese cities, were published only in English, this book is bilingual. "The others were really aimed at a foreign market, but it's important for me to spread my ideas about conservation to the Chinese population," says Erh. It's not yet a lost cause, adds Johnston, noting that an increasing number of Shanghainese are finally recognizing the value of the more mature buildings in their midst-not least because foreign professionals are willing...
...awareness of the contribution of Chinese architects may also make the Shanghainese look at these buildings in a new way, for not all were shaped by colonial hands. Though prerevolutionary Shanghai's most high-profile proponents of Art Deco were non-Chinese-including Hungarian architect Ladislaus Hudec and the French architecture firm of Leonard, Veysseyre and Kruze-Erh brings to light the forgotten Chinese architects of the period, such as Benjamin Chih Chen, Shen Chao and Chuin Tung, all graduates of the University of Pennsylvania in the 1920s. As founders of Allied Architects, the city's most famous Chinese-owned...