Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center
See Shanghai's Past, Present and Future
Phone: (021) 6318-4477
Hours: 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM (M-Th),
9:00 AM to 6:00 PM (F-Su)
Admission: 30 - 50 RMB
(Depending on Exibits showing)
Nearest Public Transit: Peoples Square Station, Line 1 and 2
Website
The Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall is one of several museums surrounding People's Square. The Exhibition Hall is a 6 story building that displays Shanghai's urban planning and development. Exhibitions include models of planned and recent developments, as well as Shanghai's history. The centerpiece of the exhibition is a huge scale model of the city of Shanghai, showing all existing and approved buildings. Visitors can view the model at "ground level", or ascend a gallery running around it for views from above.
The model is a testimonial to the cities desire to become a global center. The Museum also displays scenes from the cities past and its colonial legacy. Many of these photos are all that remains of this past. Although planning museums might sound like a boring stop, the rapid change of Shanghai and creative museum designers have made it a must see on hot or rainy days.
Built on the old British racetrack, it is important to think of the history of where the museum stands as well as the city itself. Once on the edge of the British colonial concession the racetrack was a symbol of Chinese subjugation to colonial powers. After the PRC was founded the entire area was converted into a square for military displays and political speeches. Now the exhibition hall displays the bright future that Chinese see for the city. A future of development, success, strength and freedom.
This museum tells the story of Shanghai’s evolution with a spectacular collection of archival photos, meaningless but beautiful exhibitions on wastewater management and other public works, and a scale model of Shanghai circa 2020 that spanned an entire floor. Virtual Shanghai, a computer-generated flyover of the city projected onto a 360-degree movie screen was the highlight. The camera swoops along highways, over the Huangpu and around the Pudong skyscrapers of an idealized city that may or may not exist. The souvenir shop carries Hu Yang’s “Shanghai Living” catalog — 140 photographic glimpses of the city’s present, frozen in time.
Filmmakers and science-fiction writers have imagined it, but if you want to see what a city of the future is really going to look like, take yourself over to this museum on the eastern end of People's Square. Housed in a striking modern five-story building made of microlite glass, this is one of the world's largest showcases of urban development and is much more interesting than its dry name suggests.
The highlight is on the third floor: an awesome vast scale model of urban Shanghai as it will look in 2020, a master plan full of endless skyscrapers punctuated occasionally by patches of green. The clear plastic models indicate structures yet to be built, and there are many of them. Beleaguered Shanghai residents wondering if their current cramped downtown houses will survive the bulldozer (chances are not good) need only look here for the answer. The fourth floor also offers displays on proposed forms of future transportation, including magnetic levitation (maglev), subway, and light-rail trains that are going to change even the face of the Bund. The rest of the building includes a U-shaped mezzanine with photographic exhibits of colonial and contemporary Shanghai, a temporary exhibit hall on the second floor, and a cafe and art gallery on the fifth. There are restaurants and retail outlets crafted in the style of 1930s Shanghai on the underground level that connects to the Metro. The museum is well worth an hour of your time.
