The Bund Shanghai: China Faces West

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Paralleling Shanghai's extraordinary transformation into an ultra-stylish modern metropolis and its phenomenal rise on the international stage, the city's landmark waterfront, the Bund, once the 'Wall Street of Asia', is again in the limelight as a charismatic world-class destination for life's finest pleasures. This book tells the story of the making of the Bund: from its beginnings as a muddy foreshore and its conversion into a fine esplanade in the latter half of the 19th century, when its infamous 'Public Gardens' barred entry to most Chinese, to its massive reconstruction in the early 20th century and its cosmopolitan reinvention with the dawning of the millennium. The main focus is on the vibrant years of the 1920s and 1930s when the 'Paris of the Orient' came of age and when most of the Bund's monumental edifices were built as lasting testament to the city's commercial success and its passage to sophistication and modernity. The Bund Shanghai goes far beyond the facades of the buildings, examining the fascinating historical and social context of this area and profiling the many key figures and organizations that made the Bund in years gone by and that are remodeling it today. Intending to correct some historical myths and reported inaccuracies surrounding the Bund, the book concludes with a view of how the Bund may appear some years hence when its present phase of redevelopment draws to a close.