This year, the two outstanding historical buildings in Shanghai, Huaihai Building and Ruihua Apartment, located in the area of Changshu Road in Huaihai Middle Road, have completed the overall repair of the inside and outside of the building, not only the façade of the building has been "repaired as before" to retain the historical style, the kitchen and bathroom facilities of the residents in the building, and the signs of merchants along the street have been designed and updated.
Responsible for the protective repair of the two buildings is the same team, Shanghai Xufang Construction Industry Co., Ltd. Hengfu Landscape District Protection Building Repair Team. This team, which was also responsible for the renovation of the Wukang Building and the Blackstone Apartment, is also known as the "Craftsman Inheritance Youth Team" because of its excellent repair skills and youthful vitality with an average age of only 35 years old.
At a time when Shanghai focuses on the preservation, revitalization and utilization of historical buildings and organic renewal, in recent years, the repair team has also actively jumped out of the traditional cognition of "repairing cultural relics", paying attention to the wider improvement of people's livelihood in the historical landscape area, and "guarding the old home foundation and laying a new foundation" for Shanghai's future urban renewal.
Hengfu Landscape Area Protected Building Repair Team
With the heart of respecting history, repair the city's "old treasure"
"The most difficult and complex project I was involved in repairing, the Wukang Building is definitely one."
Gu Zhifeng is currently the deputy general manager of Xufang Construction Industrial Co., Ltd., and the leader of the repair team of the protection building in Hengfu Landscape District. After entering the repair industry in 2001, he has participated in the renovation of historical buildings such as Wukang Building, Blackstone Apartment, Mao Zedong's Former Residence on Anyi Road, Shanghai Peking Opera Transmission Hall and Hengfu Style Museum in the past 20 years, and won the "Xuhui Craftsman" nomination award last year and was listed as the chief technician of shanghai.
But before becoming a "big craftsman", he was also a "primary school apprentice".
Founded in 1990, Gu Zhifeng's Xufang Building was one of the earliest state-owned units in Shanghai to focus on the repair of historical buildings. Song Qingling's former residence, Ba Jin's former residence, Xia Yan's former residence, Liu Changsheng's former residence, Clement's apartment, Ke Ling's former residence... A large number of historical protection buildings, cultural relics protection units and revolutionary cultural relics protection and repair have been completed by generations of Xufang craftsmen.
The façade of the Wukang building was repaired, and after the water brush stone was repaired, the "flat color" process was used to ensure overall coordination.
In April 2018, Xuhui District launched a protective repair of the façade of the Wukang Building, and it was Gu Zhifeng who presided over the repair project. At that time, Shanghai had a full understanding of the high standards and strict requirements for the "repair of historical buildings as before", and "respect for history" became a criterion set by Gu Zhifeng for himself and the repair team.
However, in practice, in the face of the most well-known building that Hudak has left in Shanghai, the repair team quickly found that the qingshui wall on the façade of the building alone faced difficulties such as different degrees of weathering and the large-scale production of the key material Taishan brick.
After several experiments and explorations, Gu Zhifeng and the team finally creatively combined brick powder repair and "top-to-bottom" wall repair method to restore and restore the different degrees of weathering of the exterior wall of Wukang Building. In this way, the unique vertical texture of the qingshui wall in different historical periods due to wind and rain is retained, and the restored wall surface is still refreshing.
The restored Wukang Building. Shu lyrical photography
"In fact, I didn't understand the technology at the beginning, these skills are all 'grounded' on the spot little by little with the old craftsmen of Xufang in the past 20 years." Gu Zhifeng said. In the repair team, even the project managers and safety officers who are only responsible for "managing" the construction are familiar with the standards and techniques of building repair. "There are 4 different seams in the qingshui wall, such as convex seams, diagonal seams, concave seams, and flat seams, which must be immediately seen; red bricks and black bricks are clear water bricks, but the kiln temperature is different, and it must be distinguished." Gu Zhifeng said.
At present, the total area of Hengfu Historical and Cultural Landscape Area, the largest protected area in downtown Shanghai, has reached 7.66 square kilometers, of which 950 excellent historical buildings, 1774 preserved historical buildings and 2259 general historical buildings are in the 4.3 square kilometer area of Xuhui. And the repair of these urban "old treasures" is almost all undertaken by Xu Fang.
For Gu Zhifeng and the members of the repair team, "repairing the old house" is the mission shouldered, and seeing the repaired "Wukang Building" attract more people to come to see the "Fangrong" and become an important urban landmark in Shanghai, which makes them feel more honored.
Yongjia Road Shencheng Li Qingshui wall repair.
Enrich the talent echelon, "post-85" pick the beam
The reason why it has the "nickname" of "Craftsman Inheritance And Protection Youth Team" is that the average age of this 28-person repair team is only 35 years old, and they are active in the safety, management, data combing and other positions of each repair project.
In 2019, the restoration of the cultural relics building No. 1-4 of Lane 100, Wukang Road undertaken by Xufang was rated as a national excellent monument and site protection project, and the protection and repair projects such as Shanghai Shanghai Theater, Xujiahui Catholic Church and Huaihai Building participated in by the repair team were also awarded the Shanghai Architectural Heritage Protection and Utilization Demonstration Project. And it is this highly praised repair team, most of the project managers are "post-80s" and "post-85s".
Yue Jiayong, born in 1989, is currently the deputy manager of the housing repair department of Xufang Construction Management Department, and participated in the repair of The Huaihai Building and Ruihua Apartment this year. His other identity is Gu Zhifeng's "apprentice" in Xufang's "Gaoshi with Apprentice" pair. When the "post-90s" talked about the difference between the two "old treasures" responsible for repairing this year, the concept of "respecting history" emphasized by "Master" Gu Zhifeng was also kept in mind.
Restored Huaihai Building
Interior repairs of the Huaihai Building
After the renovation, the façade of the Huaihai Building is detailed
"Before repairing the Huaihai Building, we searched through old photos, drawings and written historical materials from the 1930s, and finally found that the original building along the side of Huaihai Middle Road was expanded by a full 50 centimeters compared to when it was first built 90 years ago, which made the street edge of today's road a bit cramped." As a result, the restored Huaihai Building has restored the original road retreat, and pedestrians can clearly feel the smoothness and convenience of different times when passing through the building.
Not only do they know how to "repair houses", the younger generation of repair talents have also taken the initiative to pass on the most advanced repair concepts to more people.
On the ground floor of Ruihua Apartment, there is a "net red" restaurant "Rice Warehouse" that has been open for a long time. When repairing the façade of the apartment, the shop signs on the ground floor must be uniformly changed to black according to the design plan. At first, "Rice Warehouse" hoped to continue to retain the original beige shop sign. However, after yue Jiayong and the repair team's explanation, knowing that the color of the store will be consistent with the black window frame of each household in the apartment, and also matched with the style of the building's Art Deco school, the owner readily agreed to change the store sign, and the original beige logo was retained on the floor-to-ceiling windows along the street.
The restored Ruihua apartment on the side of Changshu Road
Old photos of Ruihua apartment
Behind the communication effect of "the best of both worlds" is the comprehensive ability shaping that the repair team pays attention to when cultivating the talent echelon. However, for Yu Hui, general manager of Shanghai Xufang Construction Industrial Company, how to make up for the age fault of repair craftsmen and improve the lack of connection between young talents, especially local talents, has always been the wish of the older generation of "house repairers".
"Because the old house is not repaired once, it needs continuous protection, so the repair talents must also have a steady stream of fresh blood."
To this end, in December last year, Shanghai's first residential repair industry technical personnel training base recognized by the Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security "Xufang Group Training Base 345 Transmission Workshop" was unveiled, taking the harmonic sound of the "Shilong Road No. 345" base door number, integrating "teaching, learning, exercise and examination", completing the technical advancement for the workers who came to study, and turning the ordinary "repair master" into a higher-level "craftsman talent".
345 Chuanxue Workshop, the entrance "Craftsman Road" summarizes the road construction materials from 1900 to the present Shanghai in different periods. Shu lyrical photography
Workers repair the clear water walls
Jump out of the category of "repairing cultural relics" and pay attention to the improvement of people's livelihood
Cement brushing is a kind of façade masonry technique that is quite common in the renovation of historical buildings in Shanghai, and can be divided into three categories according to the density of drawing wool. On the side of Changshu Road in The Huaihai Building, ruihua apartment, which was just repaired in July this year, took nearly 30 masters a full 2 months to repair the various brushing of the façade, and the operation techniques, gesture strength, and proportion of ingredients were exquisite.
Qian Qiuming, who was involved in the renovation of Ruihua's apartment, was born in 1984. In the eyes of this generation of repair talents, whether it is the classic terrazzo staircase of the Huaihai Building or the "museum" level exterior wall of the Ruihua Apartment, when they look at the historical buildings in front of them, they have jumped out of the "physical repair" itself, as well as the overall preservation of the urban context, the renewal and revitalization of the historical district.
The façade of Ruihua Apartment is gray with cement brush and white with line carvings of Art Deco style buildings.
Earlier this year, Ruihua Apartment was under renovation.
"In the past two years of repairing the two historical buildings in Huaihai and Ruihua, we are all thinking about how different it is from the previous Repair of Wukang Building." The answer is constantly clarified in the accumulation of "bubbles" on the construction site every day. "Now the renovation of historical buildings in Shanghai is not only to protect individual buildings, but also to protect the overall style of the surrounding area and an area, which is another kind of progress."
At present, when people walk to the area of Huaihai Middle Road, Changshu Road and Yanqing Road, there are not only "new" historical buildings to be repaired, but also more harmonious visual signs, greenery along the streets, and landscape light strips - but this is not enough. "The repair work is also a project to benefit the people, and it is our responsibility and mission to truly solve the living problems of the people and improve the living standards of the people." Gu Zhifeng said.
Therefore, when the façade of the Wukang building is repaired and the air conditioning external machine frame is installed, the repair team will make an appointment with each resident in advance and quickly complete the installation and commissioning within one day; the public kitchen and bathroom in the Ruihua apartment are all replaced with new water pipes, cabinets, and affixed with clean and refreshing white square bricks; when the Huaihai building is repaired and scaffolded, the construction party specially reserves passages and signs for the convenience store on the first floor to minimize the impact on the business operations of the merchants as much as possible... The moving details of the landscape district to create a "slow walking block" and a "beautiful neighborhood" are reflected in these mutual understandings and supports, and ultimately benefit the city and the people who live, work and travel in it.