Shanghai Old Town. The Old Docks

The first volume in the two-volume history and photographic atlas of the former walled city of Shanghai, The Old Docks explores the ancient lanes and historic relics of Dongjiadu, the port outside the city wall. The winding streets in this neighborhood tell the story of the region, the trades, the cults and the clans that made Shanghai a merchant capital long before the western powers built the international treaty port. In spite of half a century of neglect and mounting redevelopment pressure, Dongjiadu retains a dynamic, unregulated street life and the most varied urban fabric of any city in China. But the neighborhoods are being erased. The Old Docks is a survey and an epitaph of a city on the verge of disappearance.

Reviews

"How the author managed to research for the book and then to photograph for it – at first just ahead of the wrecking crews and then just after them – is truly awe-inspiring. The detailed research is impressive enough but, combined with the photos, has yielded an invaluable volume, perhaps the only documented history of the lost world that once was the old Shanghai."– Tess Johnston, author of A Last Look: Western Architecture In Old Shanghai, Shanghai Art Deco, Frenchtown Shanghai

"This is a landmark book. Nowadays you have to look hard to find the thriving Chinese port city that existed centuries before Westerners came to Shanghai. No one has looked harder, nor left fewer stones unturned, than the authors of this magnificent book." – Lynn Pan, author of Shanghai Style: Art and Design Between the Wars, Sons of the Yellow Emperor, When True Love Came to China

Shanghai Old Town. Topography of a Phantom City. Volume I: The Old Docks (2015)

Written by Katya Knyazeva and Adam Sinykin

Layout and design by Zhdan Philippov

Hard cover (cloth); 256 pages; 217 color illustrations.

Size: 267x220 mm (10’’x9''); weight 1.1 kg (2.5 lbs)

Publisher: Suzhou Creek Press; 1st edition (2015)

Language: English

ISBN-13: 9780692484876