Shanghai Longtang — Shikumen Doorways
699.00 د.إ
The longtang (alley) housing of Shanghai — the stone gate (shikumen) doorways of the 1920s and 1930s lilong neighbourhoods, their decorative stone arches with Western and Chinese ornamental mix, the narrow alley of Xintiandi’s preserved block.
Description
Shanghai’s lilong neighbourhoods — the distinctive terraced housing form that housed the majority of Shanghai’s population from the 1880s to 1950s — are rapidly disappearing from redevelopment, with the preserved Xintiandi blocks in the Huangpu district representing the most accessible surviving example of the shikumen housing type. The shikumen doorway — a stone gate arch in the compound’s front wall combining Western classical ornament with Chinese decorative elements — is the architectural signature of the lilong. This image was made in the preserved Xintiandi alley at 7am before the cafe district opens, the early morning light entering the east-west alley at a low angle that illuminates the carved stone arch detail of the shikumen gates. Shot on a 35mm prime at f/5.6, three successive shikumen gates recede in the alley perspective, the stone ornament detail of each gate readable at the working distance.
