Shikumen set for heritage ranking

By Liang Yiwen  |   2008-6-21  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

LUWAN District has begun preparing to declare the shikumen lifestyle a Shanghai intangible cultural heritage, district officials said.

Meanwhile, a research team composed of experts from Tongji University and Shanghai Social Science Institute is carrying out in-depth investigations into the architecture and lifestyle of the district.

Researchers so far have found about 18 shikumen neighborhoods which cover almost all kinds of Shanghai shikumen style.

For instance, the typical shikumen in Luwan included the former residence of famous Chinese painter, Feng Zikai, on Shaanxi Road S. and the former office site of New Youth, one of the earliest revolutionary magazines in the early 1900s.

But none of the 18 is completely preserved to fully reflect the shikumen lifestyle, according to Yi Xiaojing, an official with Luwan's cultural administration bureau.

"The architecture still functions well, but heavy subdivision of the houses to lease it to different tenants has impaired the integrity of the shikumen house and killed off the original lifestyle of it," Yi said. "So it's high time to protect the endangered shikumen lifestyle," she said.

The shikumen is a style of housing in Shanghai which blends features of east and west. In the past, up to 80 percent of the city's population lived in these types of houses. As a special form of architecture, it possesses unique features and is of high aesthetic value. "Shanghai furniture has countless ties with it as shikumen has been a carrier of Shanghai life and culture for 100 years," the researchers said.