This is an art scene without walls, and it is also a cultural exchange platform for the renewal and integration of Shanghai-style old houses. Based on the revitalization and renovation of the former residences of Zhang Taiyan and Tang Guoli, historical buildings in Huangpu District, the Daigo·Qinghai-Tibet Living Room was unveiled on the 13th in the East Terrace of Shanghai Xintiandi. Empowered by art and humanities, architecture is integrated into the urban renewal chessboard to build a community full of vitality.
The former residence where the reception room is located was originally No. 2 Yufuli, Lane 18, Zizhong Road. It had a three-story brick and wood structure, clear red brick exterior walls, and double-slope red tile roof. Zhang Taiyan and Tang Guoli moved here in 1922 and moved away in 1927. The old residence is a single-family house with a patio. It has witnessed Zhang Taiyan's experience in writing Sun Yat-sen's eulogy and founding the "Huaguo Monthly" to "carry forward the glory of the country". In the living room, historical pictures, books such as "The Long Chronicle of Zhang Taiyan" and videos connect Zhang Taiyan's life experience and his trajectory in Shanghai.
In his old residence, Zhang Taiyan completed "Farewell Notes on the Founding of the Qing Dynasty" to guide the public to reorganize their understanding of ethnic relations. In a series of works, he advocated incorporating the Liao, Jin, Yuan, and Qing into the Chinese historical system. The building completely preserves the historical features and spatial culture, reshapes the street facade intention of the "alley townhouses", and transitions the red bricks and metals of the historical buildings, old houses and new buildings, ensuring that the relocated old residences merge into the overall cultural atmosphere of Xintiandi Dongtaili.
In the 1930s, "developing the west" became a social craze. Artists such as Zhang Daqian, Wu Zuoren, Ye Qianyu, Chang Shuhong, and Guan Shanyue frequently went to the west to sketch and create, opening up a century-old connection between Shanghai artists and the Tibetan Plateau through visual art.
The ten-meter-high atrium of the old residence connects it with the traditional central space of Tibetan architecture. The highly saturated colors of the Himalayan region are refined into abstract slices. Inward window openings of different shapes are painted around the atrium, and frameless skylights are placed in the center. The flow of secular living space is transformed into a spiritual field for gazing at contemporary culture. After research, the renovation team restored the wooden roof trusses on the third floor roof, and the recycled old wood echoed the historical memory.
As the "Window of Tibetan Characteristic Culture·Shanghai" awarded by the Department of Culture and Tourism of the Tibet Autonomous Region and the first contemporary Tibetan cultural window in Shanghai, this landmark will long-term display of contemporary cultural and artistic creations inspired by the Tibetan Plateau. The space's first exhibition "Vertical Experiment: Altitude 0 to 8848 – Shanghai Artists and the Tibetan Plateau" was unveiled simultaneously. For the first time, it systematically presents the history of artistic and cultural exchanges between Shanghai and the Tibetan Plateau over the past century. It displays the works of contemporary Chinese artists who are from Shanghai or have deep connections with Shanghai, such as Zhuang Xueben, Chen Yifei, Zhou Chunya, Ding Yi, Xu Zhen, etc., and build a dialogue across time and space through documents, works and images.
The black and white photography at the entrance to the exhibition is eye-catching. In 1934, Zhuang Xueben, a young intellectual born in Gaoqiao, Shanghai, was inspired by the craze for "developing the west" and embarked on the "Westward Journey" with a camera in his arms. He recorded more than a thousand frontier images of great ethnographic value, which kicked off the journey of Shanghai artists to the plateau. Chen Yifei has traveled to Gansu, Qinghai, and Tibet many times, using the plateau as inspiration for his creations, and his rich sketches freeze the experience. Artist Zhou Chunya created a portrait of a Tibetan woman in 1981, which together with several manuscripts of sheep-shearing scenes, led the audience to experience the atmosphere of ethnic interactions at the beginning of reform and opening up. Works from different perspectives such as paintings, sculptures, and photography show the changes in ethnic relations and the continuous deepening of exchanges, exchanges, and integration over the past century.
