Xu Jinjiang
At the turn of the century, there was a spatial and cultural shift in the fields of urban geography and urban sociology, respectively. Many scholars have found that people's use of space is part of culture, that each region has its own cultural characteristics, that spatial places are understood as special geographical locations, and that their material forms are accompanied by meaning and value. These understandings can be traced back to the theory of spatial production by Lefebvre and de Sedu. Lefebvre declared: "As objects, especially as objects of science, it is space, not time. (Lefevol, p. 35) Professor Remy Ace, in the preface to Lefebvre's book Space and Politics, summarizes: "Lefevol expects to demonstrate a theoretical unity between physical, mental and social spaces" (Lefevol, p. 9). Some scholars believe that Lefebvre's theory of space includes three elements: cognitive space (representation of space), conceived space (space of reproduction), and space of living (phenomenological statement) (Alan Harding, Telga Brockland, p. 168). If we understand it a little deeper, the "representation of space" should emphasize the conceptualization process of space, which refers to the constructed space that exists as a cognitive object. In Lefebvre's view, the construction of space is based on social production relations, and the "representation of space" enters the cognitive system in the form of a "real space", dominating the study and imagination of space, but this "reality" is relative rather than absolute, historical rather than eternal. The "representation of space" can be said to be determined by "spatial practice", but it in turn supports and guides "spatial practice". The "reproducible space" is a rebellion and transcendence of the "representation of space", which emphasizes the actual form of space itself being personally experienced and experienced by human beings. In a sense, "reproducible space" exists in "spatial practice", but it is a secret rebellion against the spatial order presented by the "representation of space", and a dissolution or falsification of the "authenticity" of "representation of space". "Spatial practice" is spatial production, which is both physical and social: the expansion of a city's scale must be accompanied by the expansion of the land area it occupies and the expansion of its organizational structure.
Urban space, once boiled down to people's spontaneous use of geographical location, or was incorporated into the overall culture of society, space as a container, only through its content to obtain existence, and only through this content can it obtain value. Urban expansion is not only the production of space, but also the conquest and redistribution of space. In Lefebvre's view, the center of human production has changed from "the production of things in space" to "the production of space itself.". As a naturally existing space, once it enters the context of the relationship between human civilization and society, it becomes a product of society: this product has both concrete and abstract two-way characteristics, and is in a contradictory and moving state; this product, under the capitalist system, shows the characteristics of commodities. Lefebvre takes the space of social history interpretation as the starting point and ends with the spatial interpretation of social history, forming a complete and self-consistent system. In Lefebvre's eyes, space is social, political, economic, and generally strategic, and it is artificially established and planned through a series of strategies. So space is not homogeneous.
The spatial practice of Lefebvre and de Séul both coincided with de Service's understanding of the practice of everyday urban life. De Seddow argues that the practice of everyday life on the street does not allow urban planners to practice complete rationality, and these ideas are continued in the urban theories of Jane Jacobs and Sharon Zokin. The checks and balances between "spatial practice", "representation of space" and "reproducible space" constitute Lefebvre's ternary dialectic of space, and "social-historical-space" achieves a certain dialectical unity.
Another method of study of urban culture is the tradition of Simmel, Baudelaire, Benjamin and others, of which Benjamin is the most representative. There are many writers who like Benjamin very much, because this eccentric who has been called "the last literati of Europe" wrote the intractable "One-Way Street" and "Lyric Poets of the Age of Advanced Capitalism"; but there are also many scholars who do not like him, believing that the depth of his ideas cannot be compared with Lefebvre, and I think that Benjamin's value must be considered in the historical context of his time in order to find its value. The main feature of Benjamin's urban cultural theory is an interdisciplinary holistic study of the city, reflecting on the interaction between the city as a whole and its various components. The various problems in urban studies were discussed by Benjamin, who also paid early attention to the influence of technology on cities, the myth of commodities as objects of poetry, and the relationship between culture and capital, and his refusal to separate aesthetics from political and political economy, all of which set his work apart. Benjamin can be said to be a pioneer in expressing the state of contemporary urban thought, connecting economy and culture, combining theory and experience, linking technology and emotion, and viewing modern cities as realities accumulated by fictional time and space. Benjamin and Lefebvre also valued the value of space, and also believed that space was man-made. He did not reject the concept of the real world, but rather presented a mode of manufacture that constructed reality as an object of representation, which had similarities with the theory of the practice of daily life of Lefebvre and Desedos. Benjamin's special feature is also his approach to the literary approach to the city observation method, in his eyes, the city is a painting, a labyrinth, through which you can read the whole of society. The most popular concepts in Benjamin's thought were "wanderer", "arcade study", "dream" and "halo", as well as poetic urban narratives, which emphasized individual consciousness and dialectical imagery, once saying: "Every age not only dreams of the next, but also urges its awakening in dreams." Each epoch contains its own end" (Benjamin, p. 30). Sensing the rapid construction and demolition of arcades, the famous saying is that the joy of modern people lies not so much in "love at first sight" as in "last love" (Benjamin, translator's foreword). Benjamin sees cities as surreal, and another of his famous sayings is that "no appearance is as surreal as the real face of the city" (Gary Bridge, Sophie Watson, p. 438). Benjamin's image of the wanderer, to be precise, is neither a member nor a stranger of any other group, but messengers from one group to another. Although overly simplistic, it is clear that Benjamin's observations and studies imply prioritization of everyday life and emphasize the value of the street as a relic of urban humanism of a particular type, which embodies both epistemological and political resistance to urban alienation.
The metaphysical theoretical evolution of the philosophical lefebvre and others from space to place, as well as Benjamin's holistic approach to urban observation, have become metaphysical and instrumental model studies in the hands of other contemporary American and Canadian scholars. Borrowing the methods of natural science to study the social sciences is a new trend in the Western social sciences. Representative is the "scene theory" proposed by Clark and Daniel. They believe that the scene is a powerful conceptual tool, the scene theory is to borrow the research methods of physics, biology, chemistry and computational science to study culture, scene theory refers to the molecules and fruit flies of physics, Mendeleev periodic table and genetic sequence research in biology, the culture is also summarized into "authenticity, drama and legitimacy" three analytical dimensions, and then decomposed into 15 sub-dimensions or even more sub-dimensions. Through the analysis of postal code business models and yellow pages in the United States and Canada (the in-depth use of Internet big data in China can undoubtedly make it easier to engage in such research), to interpret the aesthetic characteristics and cultural characteristics of a region, as well as the cultural differences between regions. Of course, the author also wisely points out that "there is no single abstract feature to define any particular scene, and it is all rather than one or another facility alone that constitutes the slogan of all scene theory". (Daniel Clark, p. 43).
The purpose of expounding the above theories is that we will analyze the history and culture of Yuyuan Road from these theoretical perspectives.
In scene theory, comfort refers to the pleasure of using or enjoying related goods and services, but it is difficult to quantify, such as cafes, bars, parks, art galleries, museums, libraries, grand theaters, bakeries, fast food restaurants, specialty restaurants, bookstores, gyms, dance clubs, and so on. In the United States, the top 15 comforts also include jewelers, antique shops, etc., and even new car dealers, hospitals, churches, and cemeteries can also be classified as comforts. Special factories can also be considered a comfort. For example, the Starbucks roastery in Taikoo Li at the Shimen Intersection of West Nanjing Road is a case in point, and the coffee factory has become a coffee museum and cultural complex space, bringing pleasure and becoming a comfort.
Calvino said in The Invisible City: "The city does not reveal its past, but hides it like a handprint, it is written on the corners of the streets, the guardrails of the panes, the handrails of the stairs, the antennas and flagpoles for lightning protection, and every mark is a trace of scratching, sawing, carving, and slamming." (Calvino, p.9) Yuyuan Road as an area, a road, is engraved in the historical map, depicted in the "Road Agency Manufacturers Residential Distribution Map", we use the scene theory, compared with its past and present, we can see the change of aesthetic taste and cultural characteristics of this road, in addition to the concept of comfort, we also extend the concept of suitable objects to meet the basic needs of life and the concept of co-fitting as a public supporting facility, to examine the "locality" of Yuyuan Road.
Pre-1949 Yuyuan Road Road Agency Manufacturers Chart
According to the map, we will make rough statistics on the institutions and merchants along Yuyuan Road before 1949 according to the three categories of comforts, suitable objects and co-fittings, including Paramount Hotel, 3 Western fashion stores, 8 beauty and barber companies, 6 bookstores, 3 tea rooms and tea houses, and 2 cafes. There are 2 nightclubs, 2 fine restaurants, 3 florists, 1 car shop, 4 dry cleaners, 2 religious gospel churches and preaching houses, 1 photo gallery, 1 marley paint shop, and 1 Italian pastry store.
There are 4 to 5 coal and diesel carbon shops, 3 doctors' clinics, 7 shoe shops (especially many, indicating that the residents in this area are heavier in appearance), 4 pharmacies, 3 velvet shops, 2 rice shops, 2 car shops, 3 pawnshops, 2 south goods stores, 2 garment shops (that is, today's clothing stores), many food and restaurant stores, many department stores, many business houses that do not know their specific contents, as well as tobacco shops, car dealers, pen shops, zhanzhan stations, bamboo stacks, woodworks, water and electricity stores, electrical shops, radio repair shops, souvenir companies, and sauce gardens , delicatessens, food shops, restaurants, south goods numbers, car shops, building painting shops, fruit shops, stationery shops, cake shops, freight stations, etc. In addition, there are yuxingji, yuan taixing, northern guotai, Qiao Shengdian, weizhen and other old brands.
The co-ops include 6 banks, train ticket offices, police stations, fire fighting clubs, health offices, lung hospitals, teacher training, primary and secondary schools, compilation agencies, bus sub-stations, etc.
The conclusion is that Yuyuan Road was mainly a residential area dominated by Lane (including the famous dormitory of China Textile Company and the dormitory of Toyota Spinning Factory cadres). Judging from the statistics of the appropriate goods, it involves a variety of complete living and commercial facilities such as food, clothing, housing and transportation, and is a very suitable area for living, and even some local residents joke that on this road, you can live a lifetime from life to death. There are also cases in field investigations where many residents have never moved out of the area from birth to death. But from the perspective of comfort, Yuyuan Road is also a tasteful residential area, because there are many hairdressers, flower shops and bookstores in the area. In particular, the dry cleaning method comes from overseas, indicating that there are more foreign expatriates and single nobles on Yuyuan Road. The opening of the Mali Paint Shop also shows that Yuyuan Road is inhabited by many painters, according to research, there are Shen Shijia, Wang Geyi, Ying Yeping, and the serial painters are particularly concentrated, such as Hua Sanchuan, Gu Bingxin, Yan Meihua and so on. The car shop shows that there are many people who prepare cars here, and the opening of cafes, dress shops, photo studios, and shoe shops shows that the local residents are more Westernized. Public facilities are mainly supported by the security, health, fire protection, education, transportation and cultural needs of this area, and they are basically in place. There are as many as 6 banks, indicating that the Yuyuan passers-by have at least a small amount of savings. Along the way, there are many primary schools in the lane, which has become a major feature, indicating that the residents here attach more importance to the education of their children.
Judging from this map, it is not felt that there are many entertainment venues in this area, but in fact, in the Japanese and pseudo-gangster period, dance halls, nightclubs, casinos, and tobacco gambling and drugs were prevalent, which was a place of sound and color.
【Box 1 Yuyuan Road's Evil Land Entertainment Industry】
During the Japanese and pseudo-Japanese period, Huxi was called "evil land" by the Damei Evening News. By the end of 1939, there were about 24 casinos, 200 Hwo Wei lottery sales outlets, 42 opium shops and 100 smoking houses in the western Huxi cross-border road area. And Yuyuan Road is undoubtedly the most representative one in the western Huxi evil soil. In addition to the Paramount Ballroom (1933), which was completed at the intersection of Yuyuan Road and Wanhangdu Road, known as the "First Lefu of the Far East", the luxurious casino "Lianqiao Association" opened in 1940 is located directly opposite the fire brigade of Jing'an Temple Road, at the corner of Yuyuan Road and Difeng Road (now Urumqi Middle Road). Sweetie at 532 Yuyuan Road is another well-known dance hall. 864 Yuyuan Road is a building imitating European neoclassicism, where the Hundred Elders' Club, formed by the merger of five casinos, was opened here, and Zhu Shunlin, the apprentice of Jin Rong and the leader of the Huxi gangsters, was the manager. 1204 Yuyuan Road is the "Hollywood" casino and dance hall (addressed in the current Changning District Workers' Cultural Palace), which contains large Western roulette equipment, some rooms are divided into nine pai rooms, sand crab rooms, playing cards and mahjong rooms, etc., next to the "Hollywood" tobacco house selling opium and heroin, open 24 hours a day. 1238 Yuyuan Road is the Ivente Ballroom. These ballroom casinos pay more than 1 million "taps" a month to the Japanese-controlled East Asia Charity Association (located at No. 25, Lane 1032, Yuyuan Road).
According to the "Crystal News" (November 20, 1938), in the past ten days, there have been many gambling caves in the area of Yuyuan Road and Jisifei Road in Western China. The largest of these is 1,200 Tui Yu Garden Road (near Hollywood Park). It is said that the total capital of the casino is 250,000 yuan. It is organized by most Cantonese (other elements, of course). Among them, the most important type of gambling is roulette, which has a total of seven games. Followed by card nine, there are also several games. Again, it is a double stall, and it was very popular a few years ago and after the chaos (apple) (Note: Bingo, that is, bingo. The English meaning is "guessed", which is a cheap old-school form of gambling that wins by chance, similar to the Lottery Prize, where the player buys one or more bingo cards, which are painted with many squares, some with numbers in the squares and some blank squares. The dealer shouts out a number of numbers at will, and those who buy a card first and put together all the numbers called out by the dealer are the winners, including all the bets, which were once popular), which is also one of them. As for all other Chinese gambling, there is everything to enable gamblers to do their own thing. The field also provided ten cars for the transport of gamblers, regardless of whether they won or lost. (According to this method of transporting gamblers, Shi Li imitates the wisdom of the previous two gambling caves, Jing'an Temple Road No. 151 and Baoshan Road.) Both gambling caves are sponsored by Garcia, a Westerner known as the king of Shanghai gambling. The method of admission, Wen Xianben proposed that the gambler pay five yuan at the time of entry and return it at the time of departure. If it is not appropriate, a separate free paiji is established, and those who hold this paiji may pass without hindrance, and if there is no paisi, they must first be inspected at the time of entry and must inform them of their profession. The opening of the venue, which was originally scheduled for the evening of the eleventh, was unsuccessful due to tax issues. The change was made on the seventeenth day, but it was also unsuccessful. It was postponed by another day, beginning with the opening on the eighteenth. (Author Ah Mei)
According to a close-up in the General Report on August 21, 1939:
The name of Yuyuan Road has recently become even louder because of the police power problem of crossing the border to build roads. Since the end of the Shanghai war, Shanghai has become an isolated island, Yuyuan Road has also become a place of deformed development, especially in the summer, this place has become a paradise for Shanghai residents, the real Yuyuan Road has a lot of things, Zhaofeng Park needless to say, the famous place, in addition to playgrounds, night gardens, dancing grounds, large restaurants, bookstores, etc., are all available, especially in this place, it seems to be not bound by martial law, every day is the city opens night, lively than anywhere.
In the summer midnight, more lively, because the places are open all night, the famous "Hollywood Paradise", just near the Mega Garden, where there are a lot of entertainment, like Peking Opera, Bentan, etc., but there are other roads open, from "Hollywood" to the west is "Iwentai Garden", is also famous, there is a dance hall, but there is no dancer, once it is midnight, it is a special liveliness, because there are many couples and dancers in the dance floor, with their beloved lovers, come to this place to do an all-night trip, Although the place is not big, but it is very quiet, enough to talk about love on the sofa, outside the dance floor, there is a small garden, if you feel bored sitting on the dance floor, you can sit in the garden to cool, cold drinks, big dishes, all available, upstairs there are apples - this is a new game this year, popular with a lot of people.
Speaking of playing "apple", Yuyuan Road is as much as the ganges sand number, the most famous is "Huierkang", it is "apple" as the main business, from 9 p.m. to 2 o'clock at night to stop, Saturday is extended to four o'clock, the fun-loving ladies are quite a lot, "Huierkang" In addition to "apples", also brings big dishes and cold dishes, "fried chicken" is more famous, the next door "Huierdeng Ballroom", in addition to the dance floor, there are also "apple" games, but the people who play are not as much as "Huierkang", Now set up a bookstore, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., there are many people who go to listen to books, most of them are nearby residents, in addition, there are several "apple" places opened by Westerners on Yuyuan Road, but the tourists in the past are not as many as the above few places, and the pipa dance hall does not take long to close! Although there are various mini-games, they do not arouse the interest of tourists. Mega Park closes until twelve o'clock in the summer, and there are many couples in the evening to cool off inside, not to mention music on Saturdays. (Author: Ming Ming)
After 80-90 years, from our newly calculated 2022 Yuyuan Road current street shops and institutions chart, Yuyuan Road comforts have gradually increased, and the local culture reflects the trend of evolving in the direction of fashion trends.
2022 Yuyuan Road Road Commercial Establishment Chart
Only the section from Jiangsu Road to Dingxi Road in Changning District of Yuyuan Road is analyzed, including shops in Jincheng Fu'an and Yuyuan Market, including 22 restaurants (including 3 high-end Chinese restaurants, 6 Western food, 3 Japanese-Thai cuisine, 10 Chinese mid-range and popular restaurants), 12 coffee bars, 20 clothing stores, 5 nail tattoo shops, 3 flower shops, 2 Chinese and Western galleries, 2 tea houses, cake shops, cake shops, ice cream shops, jewelry shops, original chocolate shops, pet design shops, ceramic design shops, dance shops, fitness shops, Piano Art Center, Lighting Shop, Photography Shop, Fabric Shop, Handicraft Workshop, Gift Shop, Sugar Water Shop, TCM Health Massage Orthopedic Shop, and 10 Collection Tide Shops (such as Yuyintang Music Park, Fashion Life Hall, Coffee and Clothing, etc.); Suitable items include 3 convenience stores, 2 noodle shops, 2 pharmacies, 2 real estate agents, 2 hairdressing shops, 2 stationery stores, optical shops, food shops, shoe shops, tobacco hotels, hotels, and dental hospitals; 4 banks, 4 district chambers of commerce, and 1 stomatological hospital. There are 1 workers' cultural palace, children's palace, children's library, community art museum, and warm swimming pool, and the former Changning District Committee and District Government Compound is now changning financial park.
Compared with the paving institutions in the section from Jiangsu Road (formerly Yidingpan Road) to Changning Road (Baili South Road) in the "Road Agency Manufacturers' Residential Distribution Map" before 1949: there are 1 car company, 2 cafes, 2 tea houses, 1 foreign company, 1 dance hall, 1 beauty hall, 1 photo studio, 1 antique book number, 1 leather shoe shop, 1 pigment shop, 1 dry cleaning shop; there are 6 food and candy stores, 4 coal numbers, 2 restaurants, 2 rice shops, 2 pawn shops, 2 car shops, and 2 barber shops. There are 1 fruit shop, wax flavor shop, nan goods shop, soy sauce shop, electrical appliance shop, electric material shop, wood ware shop, water and electricity shop, tobacco shop and liquor store; there are nearly 10 battery factories, tobacco factories and unidentified shops; there are 2 banks, 2 bus stations, Changning District Health Office, the Second Hospital of Lung Disease, the Sixth School of China Textile Company, the stadium and many lane primary schools. On Changning Road, which is immediately adjacent to Yu Yuen Road, there is also the Garden Estate Vegetable Farm.
By comparison, we can find that the rice shop, pawnshop, coal row, electrical appliance shop, electric material shop, carpentry row, hydropower shop, and many small factories along the street or lane have disappeared due to the change of times (the wide belt factory in Qishan Estate was discontinued very late). Many of the lifestyle features are integrated into convenience stores. After 1949, the addition was: in 1952, the joint-stock Changning Cinema appeared in Luxi near Zhongshan Park. In 1955, after the completion of the Changning District Workers' Club, a film theater was also opened. Commercial functions such as cafes, tea rooms, beauty salons, photo studios, shoe shops and bookstores still exist to this day, while dessert shops, cake shops, ice cream shops, sugar water shops, nail tattoo shops, Tuina health shops, jewelry shops, original chocolate shops, pet design shops, ceramic design shops, lighting shops, fabric shops, gift shops and collection tide shops that are difficult to classify show that Yuyuan Road is keeping pace with the times and becoming increasingly fashionable while maintaining the characteristics of living in the residential area. As the largest coordinate of public space in the West District, it has existed for more than a century from Zhaofeng Park to Zhongshan Park.
【Box 2 Leo's Chocolate Experiment】
Leo is from Taipei and London, and the reason why he said this is because he was born in Taipei, went to the United Kingdom at the age of 12, and now spends one-third of his time in Taipei, one-third of his time in London, and one-third of his time in Shanghai, but Leo found that his time in Shanghai has slowly surpassed that of two other places recently, because after moving to Shanghai in 2005, he opened a chocolate shop called "Wanton Lou Slow" at the intersection of Yuyuan Road and Anxi Road, hoping that Slow Life could extend the day to 25 hours.
Leo has a thin and handsome face, has particularly attractive eyes, and likes to wear a headscarf. He was once an architect and is now a father of two. Leo did not know that the location of his chocolate shop was formerly a bookstore called "Long Time Without Reading", opened by a Guizhou returnee girl named Zhou Yan, who had appeared in the documentary "Yuyuan Road", and although it was sighing, the bookstore could not continue to open in the end.
Leo doesn't play in nightclubs, but he doesn't want to stay in his comfort zone either. He loves to explore the unique flavors and tastes of food, and while the kids sleep, he watches international courses online to study ingredients and a three-Star Chef course in Michelin. Curiosity drove him to constantly learn new skills in the food world: coffee, dim sum, bartending, fermentation, molecular cooking. It's chocolate's turn in 2019. Why Chocolate? Leo said: "It's not because I like to eat chocolate, but because I like to explore personalized chocolate to differentiate the big road goods in the market." In Shanghai, he did market research, imported very expensive machines, and as soon as he had time, he stayed in his "soul making room", pondering the source of chocolate raw materials, fermentation process, production process, and making osmanthus flavored hot chocolate and coffee flavored chocolate pieces by hand. He hoped to find different ingredients in a special environment, tell different stories, bring different flavors, and finally opened the first ready-made chocolate shop in Shanghai.
For Leo: one thing has to be done by hand to be certified. The sense of conquest drives him to constantly overcome obstacles and surpass himself. Chocolate is not just about focusing on chocolate, but about opening a door, communicating with different people, going to different regions, and connecting the whole world.
During the interview, under the lazy thin sun, next to the table and chair outside the chocolate shop, a violinist brought a dog and a small incense pig, and the poodle actively patrolled around, and even ran into the store, and the washed little fragrant pig shyly stayed in the baby's cart, and it is said that every two or three days, the hostess would bring them here to incubate the sun.
Seeing a child running over, Leo said: "Every child loves chocolate, ask them, you will get the most real and direct feedback." In this shop, you can eat strawberry, lemon, rum, wine rice wine, tea flavor, floral type, fruity type, bottled fermentation, anaerobic fermentation flavor of chocolate. You can also see photos of how a cocoa bean of origin turned into a piece of chocolate.
Leo doesn't seem to be in business, but in the great chocolate knowledge exhibition.
"I am a person with relatively rich emotions, listening to songs and watching movies, and I will cry when I feel empathy, which is very similar to the richness of chocolate. I would care a lot about the details. To make chocolate, the process needs to be rational, but the taste needs sensibility, how to match the rationality of being a designer with the sensibility of making food, and conditioning a different chocolate, is the source of my happiness. Leo said.
At the end of the interview, we were given two pieces of dark chocolate that Leo had made himself. On the wrapping paper, there are very cartoonish quips such as "crushed again and again, and finally there is no slag left, in order to meet the smooth new life"; "the chocolate elite that emits a charming luster, the sound of being broken is so crisp and pleasant"; "When the wind blows, be wary of being pulled to the back by the unwilling big chunk of broken shells". We were all of a sudden back to our childhood.
The "unbridled" chocolate shop described in the column is undoubtedly an urban comfort in the theory of the scene. From the perspective of the entire Yuyuan Road: the Westernization of the original bean chocolate shop of "Wanton Building Slow", the locality of Fuchun Xiaolong, the young trend of the Flying Gallery, and the internationalization of Chuangyi Space jointly present a rich and diverse local culture of Yuyuan Road. Black Star Pastry (Australia's famous Black Star Cake), Pink Pig, street fashion fashion brand randomevent, chao's chaos costumes, open-field monster igloo, Minji, as well as a large number of coffee shops such as The Portuguese Drunken Western Restaurant and "I Am Slow" and "Shop Li San" have become the "new beginning" of fashion. Convenience stores, tobacco hotels, pharmacies, noodle shops, mass catering shops, floral shops, and even the historic old uncle underwear store, Aunt Shi's clothing, Uncle Gu's lock in the Yuyuan Market, Xiao Zhao tailor shop and Xiao Wu shoemaker shop on this road represent the relics of traditional life, while CALEX lamp shop, Loveramics ceramic design shop, life element clothing, nail art shop, floral shop, fabric shop are between "historical origins" and "new beginnings", on the one hand, representing the "historical origin" of life. On the one hand, it has brought about a "new beginning" in fashion. From today's Yuyuan Road scene, we can see how the "historical origins" here and the "new beginning" have been more perfectly combined. This is the charm of Yuyuan Road, which is different from Xintiandi, different from Sinan Mansion, different from the scenic Tianzifang, and even different from Wukang Road, in short, different from the crowd. While beginning a "new beginning", it still maintains the "origin of history", and when it becomes a punching place for young hipsters, it still gives indigenous people a place to live.
Today's commercial layout of Yuyuan Road is still lacking cinemas as comforts (there are theaters in the Palace of Culture and the Children's Palace, but they have not been effectively used) and bookstores (the original "long time not to read" was closed due to poor management, but now there are still some small bookstores hidden in the alley of Yuyuan Road that need to be explored), and there is a lack of vegetable markets (there is a market in the former Yuyuan Market, which is closed due to poor management). As a co-fitting, many people feel that there is still a lack of a large parking lot near Yuyuan Road, but Metro Line 2, the No. 20 buses and shared bicycles passing by, and the underground parking lot attached to some office buildings can meet basic needs. Of course, if possible, you can also build a three-dimensional parking lot in the backstreet area of Yuyuan Road, but you should not build a three-dimensional parking lot along Yuyuan Road.
【Box 3 Consumption Scene of Fashion Mecca】
A small chocolate clock ice cream, placed on a square disc round paper pad, placed on the coffee table on the terrace on the second floor of the Akimbo café (Yuyuan Department Store), with copper-textured hands and scales, with exquisite gears, I almost suspect that it is still moving, the realistic effect is unbearable, similar ice cream and cigars, mangoes, pineapples and other shapes, its ground floor, there is another eye-catching treasure: a Western-style silver cash register. My "Yuyuan Road Centennial Edition" once held a launch ceremony on the ground floor of the just-opened soft opening. By the way, a year later, LV packaged it as a pop-up shop in bright green.
At this moment, it is a Monthly Day on earth, I am sitting here with friends and daughters from the south, I know that this was once the "North Mountain Building" of Mr. Shi Jicun, who founded the "Modern" monthly magazine, for decades, Mr. Shi silently "dormant" in his "Four Windows of North Mountain" composed of classical literature, modern literature, foreign literature and golden stone tablets, crossing the slightly noisy road to look down, opposite the banker Zhou Zuomin's mansion, an excellent historical building listed, and now the expensive "Fu 1017" restaurant The ground floor restaurant is a large lawn facing south to ceiling window. Just now, I took my friend to Chuangyi SPACE, which has a square lawn diagonally opposite, and this small lawn has somehow become a "fashion mecca" on Yuyuan Road. On weekends when the weather is good, the lawn here becomes a small United Nations, dressed up, handsome men and women of all colors seem to hold a fashion rally, people and dogs compete for favors in the sun, making people feel trances that do not know where they are, and can only whisper to themselves "good life". When the first wave of the Shanghai epidemic was nearing the end, I passed by here, and a small plunge pool was actually built on the east side of the lawn, which floated with inflatable lifebuoys of various animal shapes, a group of shirtless foreigners jumped into the pool one after another in the shouts and screams of the program host and the crowd, lying or lying on the grass, or sitting or standing, or shoulder to shoulder, or bare chest, densely covered with Chinese and foreign couples wearing sunglasses, playful children and various pets, the atmosphere was almost crazy, capture the next snapshot, you can pretend to be in New York, Or Paris. But this is Shanghai, and this is a scene on Yuyuan Road.
At that time, the villas along the street of Yuyuan Road were full of large lawns, but there were very few "gongping" that remained and could be opened to this day, so it was "popular" here, and the local old residents all knew that the predecessor of this place was the Long March Pharmaceutical Factory, and now it has been developed into a space called Chuangyi. There is an excellent historic building on each side. To the east, there is a steakhouse called "Frank", and more attractive are two restaurants on the lawn, a restaurant called The Cannery (Cannery), decorated in a steel skeleton and glass post-industrial style, which is more expensive. Another side-by-side restaurant called "Commune Reserve" (commune), American decoration, the price is more popular, the name of the meal is full of California, Southern California, San Diego and other American place names, reduced to toast, fried chicken, burgers, pork chops, etc., you will understand the specific content. The seats are all personalized, with high wooden barrels and bar chairs, long tables and couches, checkered tablecloth square tables and four benches, and there are out-of-the-box seats around holly at the back of the building. I have been many times, lunch and night time, it is full of people, and the crowds are boiling.
Because I was familiar with Yuyuan Road, my rich friend pulled me to be a "tour guide". I just took the opportunity to "knock on a bamboo bar", VRP, take them to Cannery to eat, but because there is no advance reservation, although it is still early before the lunch rush time, the consul still refuses to take a seat immediately, but the astute she quickly used the corner of her eye to see a Gucci bag worth about 20,000 yuan in the hands of her friend's daughter, and then she turned sharply: "Or, you will come back in an hour, I will try to leave you as much as possible."
So I took my friend to sit at Akimbo café 1018, which was supposed to be a visit, because it was a post office for a long time, so the developer deliberately designed a white postbox in front of the store during the renovation. Here, according to each person's taste, we ordered an ice cream cake in the shape of Australian white, American coffee and clock pineapple, and returned to Canaly an hour later, where we were unobstructed and led to the innermost seats. The restaurant was already buzzing with people and exoticism, and in addition to the signature canned food, we also ordered dried goose mousse, Caesar kale salad, Taco and so on. When I went to the toilet, I passed a charcoal-burning room with a roaring fire, and I photographed the diners of the fashion show through the large glass window.
In fact, I know that the innermost seat is actually the most disliked by the guests, and the guests prefer the outer seats at the door or the rows of seats at the door, because you can see the scenery on the lawn and the road, and feel the warm atmosphere of all kinds of people. In the afternoon, when there are slightly fewer people, guests can even ask the waiter to move the square table to the edge of the lawn, bathed in the customary fragrance, the tide man wearing expensive T-shirts and the beautiful woman in the tender yellow open-arm skirt are in harmony with the local residents and elderly citizens sitting on the rest chairs along the street, across the road is the deep Qishan Estate, next to the century-old mansion, which constitutes a very heterogeneous Yuyuan Road scene. Compared with the super luxury aesthetic scenes of the Bund and the Bund source, this "fashion mecca" in the residential area still belongs to the "life aesthetic block" where it is located, but it is more fashionable and aesthetic, but it still has a strong local life atmosphere.
【Box 4 The Transgression of Equality】
Professor Chen Weizhen of Tongji University and her student Luo Jiemei also once "freshened" the scene of Yuyuan Road:
In the outdoor space, under the dazzling art installation, the lawn beer festival plays swaying electronic music, people sit or lie down, running dogs and chasing children, attracting people who pass by. The uncle who rides a bicycle to buy vegetables and the white-haired grandmother who goes out for a walk can't help but stop. On this once closed parking lot, an open lawn is happening that everyone can participate in. Also a bar, Yuyuan Road is mostly "heart-warming and happy taverns" that are "very suitable for chatting, you can talk about a lot of topics that make people's hearts wrinkle"; it may be "a little smaller than expected", but it has "gentle shops". They are like bars near universities, more affordable, do not require a few thousand yuan of "desk fees", have simple furniture and decoration, deviant but still cordial. This "equal deviance" comes from individual shops and types of events, but at the same time it exudes a relatively open attitude of welcoming all kinds of people.
Overall, Yuyuan Road is more in line with a gradual, organic renewal process, not arrogantly filling the entire block with a single pure design language, but making residents feel that "something has changed, and nothing has changed." The once closed parking lot in the Hongji space park has been turned into an open lawn, so that the buildings and streets of the streets are gradually moving towards a state of openness and connectivity; or cleverly using small open spaces as flexible space transitions, making the boundaries of different space types flexible and blurred, creating a threshold for spaces with different functions and styles. These changes have encouraged the creation of a "good-neighborly and friendly" place atmosphere shared by different social groups, and the flexibility of material space boundaries and the blurring of boundaries have also stimulated the loosening and "communion" of social space, and further spawned the scene of "equality".
On the lawn outside the Hongji space, grandparents passing by curiously inquired about the intention and production method of the cutting-edge illustrator's work. Experimental works placed by independent designers outside the public aisle inadvertently dot the way for aunts to buy vegetables, becoming "culture and art by the steps downstairs", which is an unexpected daily life in the neighborhood. In addition to the creative industries represented by Hongji Space, Miyu and Xinlianfang, which are concentrated along the main street, there are also small patches or dot-shaped industrial spaces that penetrate into the hinterland, including Anken Air, Yuyuanli, and some old bookstores, vintage clothing stores, designer studios, etc. This reflects the creative class's preference for the tastes of everyday life, and also shows that the relationship between cultural production and cultural consumption may be increasingly blurred, and cultural life itself may become a new cultural production. The creative industries on Yuyuan Road have become part of neighborhood life, rather than a walled, well-defined park.
After research, they found that the scene characteristics of Yuyuan Road are "equal deviance". (Chen Weizhen, Luo Jiemei, p120)
As the author of scene theory puts it, "Scenes, especially those with more selective, self-expressive, deviant, and fascinating dimensions, also provide a key stimulus for economic innovation" (Daniel Clark, p.19). Obviously, the holistic thinking on the development of post-industrial urban industry in scene theory provides a new way of thinking for in-depth understanding of Shanghai's scene characteristics and the development of creative industries. The advantages of this cultural research paradigm are that it is concise and clear, clearly expressed, and has a practicality to the end. However, I am afraid that we can analyze the "scientific nature" of culture, but we cannot analyze the "humanity" of culture. As Ralph points out: "The analysis of behavioral problems or other special problems appears too mechanical and abstract, reducing the world to a single structure or model, ignoring the subtleties and meanings of everyday life experience." (Ralph, foreword)
Sharon Zokin proposed the concept of "authenticity" in the book Naked City, and what she refers to as "authenticity" is "a continuous process of life and work, a gradual accumulation of daily experiences, a kind of expectation that people still have the same house in front of them and the community around them every day"; "a moral right that allows people to take root in the city". "When this continuity is interrupted, the city loses its soul." (Zogen, p. 6). Speaking of which, we would like to mention the "Ship of Theseus," a philosophical paradox about identity change. In the first century AD, the philosopher Plutarch asked the question: If the wood on the ship of Theseus was gradually replaced until all the wood was not the original wood, would the ship still be the original ship? Some philosophers think it's the same thing, some philosophers think it's not. In urban renewal, we are undoubtedly closer to identifying with the continuity of gradual replacement than to demolition, so we are more likely to accept the view that the ship of Theseus is still the same object. Because the way theseus ships are made is a relatively good way to maintain continuous "authenticity" in the midst of intense urban renewal, of course we do not want all the wood on board to be replaced. Sharon Zokin further explains the connotation of "authenticity": "On the one hand, 'authenticity' is original, historically pioneered, or adhered to a certain tradition. Authenticity, on the other hand, refers to the unique, the latest in history, innovative, or creative" (Zokin, p. 276). In fact, it points out that "authenticity" consists of two parts: the old in history and the new trend in creativity. "Authenticity" is the concept of connecting historical origins with new beginnings, and reshaping "authenticity" begins with creating an image that can connect the aesthetics of origins with the social outlook of new beginnings.
The difference between Shanghai's Internet celebrity punch card from the Bund building to the "Wu (Kang Road) An (Fu Road) Ancient Town" is that the Bund building is a public building area, and the "Wu'an Ancient Town" is a residential building area, indicating that people are gradually moving closer to the "originality". Because Yuyuan Road is included in the 14 historical landscape reserves and one of the 64 roads that will never be widened in the city center, it is not like Xintiandi, which only retains the "authenticity" of the skin of Shikumen, nor does it become a commercial scenic spot for tourists like Tianzifang, as Sharon Zokin points out: "A certain group may not need real 'authenticity'; but only need to claim to see 'authenticity'; in order to be able to control and use the benefits of 'authenticity'". (Jokin, p.5) New restaurants, trendy shops, and petty bourgeois places are just a "real imaginary effect." Jean Baudrillard, in Imitation and Simulation, goes even more deeply: "The use of real symbols becomes a substitute for the real self; the real copy makes the real no longer function, and a hyper-stable stylized, fully described machine not only provides the real symbol, but also short-circuits the real operation." So there is no real production again." Yuyuan Road still retains its original aboriginal and authentic residential communities, although advertised as a "living aesthetics block", it also strives to be gentlemanly, trendy and young. However, maintaining the basic historical style, local culture and life fireworks, and at the same time having a new beginning because of the introduction of Internet celebrity tide stores, it is undoubtedly a sample that better presents the "authenticity". As Leo said in an interview: "In a global perspective, Yuyuan Road is also a unique transformation. Overall, Yuyuan Road is more in line with a gradual, organic renewal process that doesn't arrogantly fill the entire block with a single pure design language. It can be seen that everyone is very careful about doing this transformation. Yuyuan Road is a historic neighborhood and at the same time very fashionable, just like the combination of the old Shikumen and the new trendy shops, which is its most attractive place. If I go out shopping, the richness is definitely the most appealing to me, and there's a twist (twist) concept in it. When my wife and I used to do design, we would look for this richness in our lives. The driving force of the Yuyuan Road trend comes from the media's spread of the explosive point, and it needs to have some young vitality here. But if all the cafes are also problematic, look for different trendy shops, such as the gallery opposite our chocolate shop, which often exhibits the works of contemporary commercial artists, the audience queues up to watch the exhibition, there is a light shop to the east is very distinctive, and there is a ceramic shop to the west. Some want to be topical, some are just display windows. We came from coffee making backgrounds, but it wasn't until I came up with the chocolate concept that the partners were willing to let us try it. I hope that the next step of yuyuan Road's renovation will be more closely linked to community activities and not become a attraction like Tianzifang. ”
The Canadian scholar Edward Ralph clearly has a theory that is different from scene theory, declaring: "I do not intend to pay attention to those abstract theories and models, but directly to the living world itself, and to recognize and experience our daily actions in the context and scene of our lives, especially to think about a phenomenon in the living world, the place, and try to elucidate the differences and intensities in our local experience." It is not enough to carry out a scientific analysis of place and sense of place, because both concepts contain human hopes, disappointments, and confusion in life. (Ralph, foreword). The core concept of his research is "place and no place". The urban renewal of Yuyuan Road also involves "place and no place". The so-called "locality" refers to the fact that a region forms its own unique characteristics and distinguishes itself from other regions in various aspects such as natural environment, human history, cultural background, customs and traditions. "No place" can be seen as a concept formed in the context of rapid urbanization, modernization and globalization. Cookie-cutter high-rise buildings, straight traffic arteries, large shopping malls, frequently spaced gas stations, standardized hotels and chain convenience stores, on the one hand, provide us with a convenient and efficient modern life, on the other hand, because there is no tradition to inherit and constantly eliminate "place" with "no place". The conflict between "place" and "no place" constitutes the dilemma of modern man. But place and placelessness are not diametrically opposed, but intertwine in thousands of contradictory ways, forming a strong tension in today's urban life. The new urban culture is a culture of meaningful and interactive communication manifested by the multimodal interface between local and no place, mobile space and local space. However, in the current urbanization process and urban renewal that is sweeping everywhere, there is no doubt that more valuable is the emphasis and reproduction of locality.
Before 1949, the "locality" of Yuyuan Road can be summarized as "cross-border road construction, Xinli Lane, neighborhood commerce, civil society where elegance and customs coexist, and the western Huxi gangster soil in the Japanese and pseudo-Japanese periods". After 1949, because many residences in the middle section were accepted by the "Good Eighth Company on Nanjing Road" and other troops, a certain "military region characteristics" were produced, and after the reform and opening up, with the urban renewal tended to be positioned as a "living aesthetic block".
"Locality" has something in common with the concept of "authenticity" or "authenticity". Ralph analyzed: "Attachment to a place and deep connection to it is a basic human need." "To be rooted in one place means to have a safe foothold from which we can see the world; it means that we can grasp our own position in the order of things; and it also means that we can form an effective attachment to a place on both the material and spiritual levels." (Ralph, pp. 60-61) The deep connection with the place that represents home is the inescapable destiny of mankind. Without such a connection, humanity would lose the value of existence. "At the deepest level, man is in a state of unconsciousness and subconsciously relates to places. Such a place is where the 'home' is. The home is the root of humanity, the center of safety and shelter, the place of care, and the basis of orientation" (Edward Ralph, p. 214). As the book "Yuyuan Road" says at the end of the book: "A thousand roads, ten thousand roads, all the roads in the world, in fact, there is only one road, that is, the way home."
Ralph followed "locality" and proposed the concept of "intentionality" in his writings, which means that "place is the center of behavior and intention". "The essence of the place depends to a large extent on the unconscious intention of human beings, and the unconscious intentionality defines the place as an important core of human existence." (Ralph, p. 70) It is our consciousness that gives meaning to the world, and a house, a street, a city, can become a place in the heart. Each of us is truly connected to places where we were born and raised, where we currently live, where we have had unique relocations, and it is these places of deep concern and the continuity of places that shape our personal identity and cultural identity. This is also the source of human security, and it is from this that we set out to find the coordinates of the world. The essence of place is in man, and man is the place. For man, the space that produces meaning becomes the place.
The urban micro-renewal of Yuyuan Road has been largely successful. Before 1949, the Changning District Workers' Club was once a playground called Hollywood, and after liberation, it became the Changning District Workers' Club, and the Chinese-style buildings inside were once the theater of the Workers' Club. In the process of demolition and construction, this place has also been regarded as a real estate development space. The high-rise buildings built along the road are still named the Workers' Cultural Palace in Changning District, and the original courtyard and the buildings behind it have been converted into a residential area, which has actually been completely renewed. Changning District Workers' Club to the east near the Changning District Children's Palace of the row of corridors, originally a glass propaganda gallery, the late Cultural Revolution and the beginning of the reform and opening up often published some of the district's advanced figures deeds and some small works of art, the propaganda gallery in front of the 20 and 21 tram stations west of the Anxi Road Station, now there are still 20 tram stops, but that row of propaganda gallery location has now become a shop along the street, once "long do not read" bookstore, now "wanton building slow" The original chocolate shop is in the middle of it, and now it has become a public event area on Yuyuan Road, a new space with authentic meaning. The location of Fei Yo Gallery was originally a row of featureless walls of the Changning District Public Security Bureau, and later broke the wall to open a store, it can be said that the gallery turned a "no place" into a "place with authenticity" value. The same is also in the original Long March Pharmaceutical Factory workshop location formed in the Chuangyi space, every weekend, nearby residents and tourists who come to punch the clock gather here, the small lawn has become a "flower world", people dress casually, look at ease, children and dogs frolicking with each other, extremely relaxed, can be described as near and far, this scene is very different from the Bund as the city's living room, because on the Bund you can not see such a community scene, resident dress, although here is not necessarily Shanghai's "master bed", But at least it is one of the "bedrooms" in Shanghai, so it has formed a very distinctive international "new place". "For the everyday experience of city dwellers, urban spaces are their home and where they work every day. The spaces composed of those streets are filled with various landscapes, sounds and different smells, and 'the actual thing of the city as a geography is mainly the street, because the street is the central territory around which daily life revolves'". (Dardel, 1952, p. 37) (Edward Ralph, p. 28) The charm of the street of Yuyuan Road is that it not only does not erase the authenticity of historical origins, but also constantly superimposes the authenticity of new beginnings. They are characterized by maintaining a close connection with the local community and the population, and do not cut off from the "place" in which they live.
【Box 5 Toot and Flying Yo Gallery】
On April 18, 2022, during the epidemic period in Shanghai, Fiu Gallery on Yuyuan Road officially announced that alma, a virtual person, became a gallery partner, and announced that the first exhibition "Future comes from now" curated by virtual partner ALMA will soon meet with everyone.
Founded in 2018, Fiu Gallery is known for its bold, eye-catching, innovative and highly interactive art style, making it one of the most influential young galleries in Shanghai. As it is introduced: Fiu Gallery aims to explore the future of art empowerment and commercially create artistic value realization, integrating storytelling, scenario-based, gamification and imaginative planning concepts. Constantly subverting the traditional model, with its keen market insight and artistic professionalism to explore a variety of artistic lifestyles, and achieve a high degree of integration of business and art.
The founder of fiu gallery Fei Yo Gallery is a post-90s girl, whose legal name is Yu Qinrun, and her friends like to call her Toot. Toot has a quiet, beautiful, clean face, and is very intellectual and polite to people and things, but in fact, she is a very fashionable and imaginative girl, and may still be a little wild inside, and she has not asked her horoscope. After graduating from the University of the Arts London in the United Kingdom, after two years of traveling back to China, he opened a gallery named Fiu on Yuyuan Road with friends.
In the fall of 2020, I did an interview with Toot Toot, and the following is a Q&A.
Q: Why did you choose to open the gallery on Yuyuan Road? What kind of street do you think Yuyuan Road is?
A: The location is on Yuyuan Road because it is a residential area, which is full of the atmosphere of life, nearby grandparents, children after school, and young people will become guests of the gallery, we are free for the elderly and children, and we are also welcome to bring pets to see the exhibition. The reason why I don't think about the French Concession is because I think it's too commercial; I don't think about art parks because I'm afraid that the people who go to the gallery are all in the art circle and not grounded. Our gallery is aimed at young people who do not understand art, as well as grandparents and children, and it takes effort to attract the public. Yuyuan Road is inhabited by many elderly people with high knowledge level, and some elderly people will write blogs after watching the exhibition, with background music, and share their feelings on the Internet. It is a pleasure to see that everyone lives in the art life, and we hope to eliminate the sense of distance between the public and art from all angles. Some children came dressed in alien costumes, and some children came with picture books to copy, and there was once a young man with bandages tied to his head to watch the halogen cat exhibition accompanied by adults. Later, we read his Weibo to learn that he had just completed craniotomy and was greatly hit by his life, and the works of halocats during his illness gave him a lot of support and strength. I enjoy the current state of Yuyuan Road, the state of life that naturally integrates into it. Lots of interesting shops on the street. If foreign artists come to Shanghai, I often invite them to live on Yuyuan Road for a month, create on this street, and walk the whole street together.
Q: You have also lived in London, can you compare it with Shanghai?
A: I am a native of Wenzhou, I came to Shanghai since I was a child, and I only went out to study later. He returned to Shanghai at the age of 20 and had just returned from London with a big gap. London is the most ideal city for artists to live, art is too saturated, you can see performance art on the road to eat a meal, when the west bank of Shanghai was just beginning construction. Six years have passed, and I feel that there is no difference between Shanghai and London now, Shanghai is very comfortable, and I often ask my friends from abroad to come back soon. It's pleasant for lazy people to stay abroad, but it's better to do something or come back, there will be a sense of accomplishment. The domestic art market has only just begun, and the demand will be great in the future. The city of Shanghai itself is very humane and warm.
Q: It is often seen that young girls wait in long lines to enter the gallery after making an online reservation, which is very in line with the characteristics of the experience economy, what kind of gallery is fiu gallery?
A: Fiufiu is actually a composite art curatorial company and a young art space with multiple interactions. We have cross-border alliances with art and cultural institutions, governments, commercial real estate and retail brands, and contemporary emerging designers to empower art in all aspects of daily life in the simplest and most powerful way, narrow the distance between the public and art, cultivate the public's awareness of pan-art culture and high-frequency consumption ability, and establish a high-viscosity quality community. The general way a gallery operates, it must have the resources of a collector. Many of the galleries are artists of the second generation or artists themselves, but fiu gallery is stepping on the influencer effect and hopes to get the support of the public. We are a young and lifestyle gallery that wants to be a bridge between public life and art museums, and we want to arouse public interest and curiosity about art. We don't need the public to have a deep understanding of art, we only hope to cultivate everyone's understanding of pan-art culture. We believe that no matter what kind of industry we are in in the future, we can't do without creativity, because the top talents in all walks of life are the most creative people, without art there is no creativity, art makes everything full of possibilities.
At present, we are doing the Peacebird Joint Exhibition, and before we did the Artist Exhibition, "12345 Day Care", when the halogen cat exhibition, the audience lined up several floors, the longest queue was 8 hours, we issued a sign, let them go to the neighborhood first, but also to promote the economy of Yuyuan Road. We did 20 events and exhibitions in 2019, and when the offline is saturated, we will develop more online. Art will definitely be graded in the future, the top is tens of millions of transactions, down must be the link of art business, fiu gallery to take the unit price low number of large concepts, especially suitable for the post-90s group, we hope to put art daily, open a store for a year or two mainly to do content, the cultural industry can not start profitably, the gallery has begun to make a profit.
The location of Fei Yo Gallery, remembered as the detention center of the Changning District Public Security Bureau, no one ever imagined that it would be gorgeously transformed into a composite art space founded by a young man. This is where the legend of the urban renewal of Yuyuan Road lies. As we pursue the old "origins", we are also recognizing the new "beginnings". When the maverick "Generation Z" and their grandparents with children appeared together in the Fei Yo Gallery to play on the slide in the field filled with black and white balls, we felt a kind of diverse culture that collided intimately and happily. Life needs the "other," and aesthetics needs the "other." The famous urban planning thinker Mumford once said: The three basic missions of cities are to store culture, circulate culture and innovate culture. The community cultural practice of Yuyuan Road is a good proof of this.
Of course, there are also some "no places" on this road, such as the almost complete renewal of Yuyuan Road in the east, the original road appearance and lanes have disappeared, fortunately, the west of Urumqi Middle Road has been preserved because it is designated as a historical style area. In order to build a subway exit station, most of the well-known new style at the intersection of Yuyuan Road and Jiangsu Road was demolished, and a high-rise residential "Changyuan" was built at the intersection, as well as two high-rise office buildings of Zhaofeng World Trade Center and Shunyuan Enterprise Development Building. In the triangle of Changning Road, Dingxi Road, Yuyuan Road, the original Changning Cinema was demolished to build a standardized building of Jincheng Fu'an Square, obscuring the original "West Park Building" with the highest recognition in the West District, after experiencing countless commercial face changes such as collection stores, Best Selling, miyu, etc., the façade now covered with Dingzhi oral advertisements has made it a more typical "no place". Perhaps it is a punishment, the business here has been sluggish, the operator has changed stubble after stubble, but it has always been unclear, in addition to physical reasons, in fact, there are social reasons, that is, it can not undertake the past, and the transportation hub of the year (now it has not become a subway exit) and the once Changning Cinema (recognizable) and other historical memories and neighborhood culture to establish a connection, and lack of future imagination, because of the excessive frequency of changing faces and positioning messy and can not become a new trend beginning, can not obtain any kind of "authenticity". To "rekindle" it, there must be a "memory imagination" that combines historical origins and the beginning of trends.
At present, there are also problems and contradictions in Yuyuan Road. For example, the "Long Time No Reading" bookstore, which was once a well-known cultural landmark on Yuyuan Road, slowly established a connection with the surrounding residents, but failed because the operation could not be maintained; the birth of the Yuyuan Market, once envisioned to build a supporting business and community culture for the residents, but soon because it could not make a profit, it gradually deviated from its original intention and embarked on a semi-gentlemanly road; Fei Yo Gallery, as a landmark on Yuyuan Road, paid more attention to interacting with local community residents while becoming trendy, fashionable, and young. However, it is also facing the threat of rising rents and landlord termination and is always in a state of fear; the outstanding relocation and transformation of the sporadic plots of land where the famous long-established Fuchun Xiaolong is located due to the solution of people's livelihood difficulties and the value of the lot are all major tests of the next urban renewal direction of Yuyuan Road.
【Box 6 Will cafes squeeze out small dumplings】
The day before the closure of Fuchun Xiaolong, a friend made an appointment at noon to have a "temporary dinner" in the store, because the store was full and could only extend the dish to Fumai next door. It can be seen that the influence of Fuchun Xiaolong among the citizens. Usually, you need to queue up to come here at noon on weekends. Xu Changming, chairman of Fuchun Xiaolong, said: The prosperity of the city is based on the crowd, the city should give people the feeling of home, to have the smell of fireworks, the memory of the city can not be erased at will, only in this way, our city has real vitality and peace. The Internet can not replace everything, the reason why Fuchun Xiaolong is famous, not only to meet the needs of people around, people from other parts of Shanghai on weekends also came to taste the dim sum here, the temporary closure of Fuchun Xiaolong on Yuyuan Road has attracted the attention of many people on the Internet, why? We can open semicolons in large shopping malls, and even export brands to Montreal, Canada, but this flagship store on Yuyuan Road that has been fixed for many years can be said to be our roots, the most grounded, and the urban memory of many Shanghai citizens. The city of Shanghai has experienced a hundred years of vicissitudes, after a baptism of revolution, in a hundred years of commerce, there are modern, there are petty bourgeoisie, but what continues is the fireworks in the world. The Pacific Ocean can sail aircraft carriers, the Huangpu River can sail 10,000-ton ships, the small sampan in the Suzhou Creek can also be a landscape, and the function of the city should be all-round, able to take what is needed and do its best. Cities can't just have cookie-cutter concrete buildings, but also different buildings with different heights to form a beautiful skyline. Similarly, Yuyuan Road not only needs coffee shops, but also traditional Chinese dim sum. Hopefully, the café won't squeeze out the dumplings.
In the process of improving the business environment, we should also fully consider how to protect traditional catering brands, and cannot blindly pursue the commercial value of the location, in fact, national catering brands also have commercial value and more social benefits. Innovation is inseparable from inheritance, and without inheritance, how can we talk about innovation? In the market development and commercial layout, national catering brands should not be marginalized, let alone eliminated. Protecting and developing national catering brands is not only the responsibility of enterprises, but also the responsibility of the government, or the channel to solve employment. We recruited a lot of migrant workers, and our chef won the grand prize! Our cities need them too.
The urban renewal of Yuyuan Road has been in a gradual process, at first thanks to the fact that the main body of development is a company with not very strong funds, with gradual funds for continuous micro-update, rather than a sharp huge amount of capital investment, to avoid the Yuyuan Road facing the overall migration of residents and the development and transformation of the area beyond recognition, and then thanks to the fact that the enterprise can patiently establish the identity of local culture in the renewal process that lasts for more than 10 years, and the connection with local residents, It benefits from the maintenance and promotion of community culture by local government departments and highly conscious resident groups. In the urban micro-renewal of Yuyuan Road, there have always been two driving forces, one with indigenous people, local street communities, volunteers and social forces as the main body, hoping to maintain its original "authenticity" life on the basis of this road that originally belonged to the residential area, maintain its community culture with indigenous people as the main body, and increase its locality and land grabbing through further neighborhood construction; the other force takes local development enterprises, foreign entrepreneurs and new immigrants as the main body, and actively promotes the gentrification of this road. Trendy and young, it is hoped that through the transformation of the fashion aesthetics of this area, it will attract foreign tourists, consumers, entrepreneurs and young people, so that Yuyuan Road will become another highland for Internet celebrity punch card consumption. These two forces are not necessarily opposed and torn apart. On the contrary, it is through the game and interaction between the two sides that on the one hand, the local residents are gradually moving closer to the "new beginning"; on the other hand, the power of the trend has begun to realize the importance of connecting with the local community, and the two forces have reached a delicate balance, forming a unique cultural trait of "equal deviance". Because in the continuity of time and space, both attach importance to the "origin" and welcome the "beginning", the "authenticity" and "locality" of Yuyuan Road have been preserved to a large extent, so that the elderly indigenous people are reluctant to move away, young new immigrants continue to pour in, the vitality of the community is continuously strengthened, and the local culture is constantly enriched, becoming a "habitat" place suitable for travel, livability, appreciation, pleasure, work, and learning. The sense of well-being, sense of gain, security and belonging of new and old residents and tenants has been enhanced, and community cohesion has gradually formed. Yuyuan Road has become a road with a well-preserved historical style, which is inseparable from the participation and voice of local residents; Yuyuan Road has become a trend street that young people like, and it is inseparable from many Internet celebrity shops; the charm of Yuyuan Road lies in the profound historical and cultural accumulation, but also in the fashion trend of the aesthetic block of life; in the indigenous and permanent residents who watch over the "nostalgia of urban people", and also in the new immigrants and new human beings from all over the world who "create urban utopia". Indigenous people and new immigrants, residents and tourists, community and fashion, historical style and new beginnings, local and non-local co-prosperity and constant collision, have become the charm of Yuyuan Road full of diverse and heterogeneous cultures. As someone said in the relevant investigation, Yuyuan Road "seems to have changed a lot, and it seems that nothing has changed."
epilogue:
As a representative figure of Western Marxism, Lefebvre emphasized the priority of space for time, and believed that the urban field encountered a requirement for totality and synthesis, which gave rise to a knowledge strategy. And this is exactly what Benjamin observed with his unique narrative style. Lefebvre believed that this strategy of knowledge could continuously compare theory with experience in order to lead to a total practice: the practice of urban society. This practice, like human beings occupying time and space, can win a higher form of freedom. Lefebvre's answer is: to put into practice a new right, and this new right is the right to enter the city, the right to enter the urban life, the human environment and the new democratic environment.
Compared with the traditional economic determinism and geographical determinism, scene theory uses scenes to analyze local cultural styles and aesthetic characteristics, and draws on the research methods of natural sciences, and through a large number of data support, finds the analysis tools of local cultural characteristics and development changes and social life. Scene theory not only regards production as a production object, but also examines it as the social organization of the mode of production, and at the same time not only regards consumption as the consumption activity itself, but also focuses on the social organization form of consumption. Its academic value lies in explaining the economic and social phenomena of post-industrial urban development from the perspective of consumption and aesthetics, which is different from production-oriented industrial theory. To summarize Sharon Zokin's original meaning: "Authenticity" relates to time in three different ways. First, the appeal to authenticity means that we adhere to an urban ideal that is reproduced in the form of cultural imagery of a particular historical period and as an absolute criterion for judging the urban experience. Second, our mental image of authenticity does change, because each generation has its own experience of the times with the city, and the times shape the actual perception of those who live in it. Third, thinking about authenticity reveals the importance of time in the broadest sense, as city dwellers are increasingly torn between what is promised to be created and what threatens to perish, whether from urban renewal or middle-class problems, or from war or ecological disasters. Harvey Cox argues that the transcendence of homogeneous spaces does not appear out of thin air, but can only be achieved through deliberate efforts and the promotion of "secularization". "A secular civilization does not require monochromaticity and homogenization. Nor are the traits that emerge from diversity resigned to fate. Like everything in a secular city, diversity needs to be planned. (Cox H, p. 422-424) Secularization, much like what we now like to call "pyrotechnics," is an attitude that corresponds to the authenticity of self-consciousness. But whether "worldliness," or what we call "pyrotechnics," occurs spontaneously through complete planning or on the needs of life itself, may be a question that needs to be understood. In this regard, Ralph said quite dialectically: "Human roots cannot be designed, and we cannot guarantee that everything will be in place, but we can create conditions for people to cultivate their roots in a place and their care for the place." (Ralph, p. 222) He goes on to say: "As long as the place is still important to us, as long as we are concerned with the psychological and moral problems that arise from the loss of roots, the enhancement of mobility, and the absence of place, then we must find a way to consciously and authentically create the place." Beyond that, we have nowhere else to go, and we either turn around and celebrate the triumph of nowhere and join the ranks of its glory, or we silently accept the mediocrity of place and the cold cleansing of the place of everyday life. How to protect and enhance the meaning and uniqueness of the place without losing the convenience and modern life brought by the place is the way forward that we have to explore. Whether the geographical phenomena of the future are filled with no place or full of meaningful places, our responsibility lies with ourselves." (Edward Ralph, p. 222-223)
From the perspective of space, scene, authenticity and locality theory, through charts, data analysis and interviews, we deeply analyzed the cultural characteristics and social space of Yuyuan Road. In the continuous urban renewal, whether the future of Yuyuan Road can become a scene with "authenticity" and an ideal "place" in our hearts depends on our love and sharing in this place. As Lefebvre and David Harvey (pp. 1-27) summed up: "The right to the city is the right to transform the city according to our wishes and at the same time as ourselves".
(The author is the director of the Institute of Literature of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, the dean and researcher of the Institute of Urban Cultural Innovation)
bibliography:
Space and Politics (2nd Edition), translated by Li Chun, Shanghai, People's Publishing House, August 2015, 2nd edition
Alan Harding Terga Brockland, Urban Theory, translated by Wang Yan, Social Sciences Literature Press, December 2016, 1st edition
(de) Walter Benjamin, Paris, the Capital of the 19th Century, translated by Liu Beicheng, Beijing, The Commercial Press, March 2013, 1st edition
Gary Bridge Sophie Watson, ed., Introduction to Cities, translated by Chen Jianfeng and Yuan Shengyu, Guangxi, Lijiang Publishing House, February 2015, 1st edition
Daniel Aaron Sear (U.S.) Terry Nichols Clarke, Scenes: How Spatial Quality Shapes Social Life, translated by Qi Shuyu and Wu Jun, Beijing, Social Sciences Academic Press, January 2019, 1st edition
Italo Calvino, The Invisible City, translated by Zhang Mi, Shanghai, Yilin Publishing House, August 2019, 1st edition
(plus) Edward Ralph, "Place and No Place", translated by Liu Su and Xiang Xinyi, Beijing, The Commercial Press, February 2021, 1st edition
Cox H, 1968, ”The restoration of a sense of place” Ekistics 25 422-424
Sharon Zokin, Naked City, translated by Qiu Zhaoda and Liu Wei, Shanghai, People's Publishing House, August 2015, 1st edition
Chen Weizhen Luo Jiemei, "Perspective on the Cultural Scene of Shanghai Metropolis: Taking Yuyuan Road, Julu Road and Panyu Road as Examples", Shanghai Cultural Development Report (2021), Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press, April 2021 edition
David Harvey, The Rebellious City: From Urban Rights to Urban Revolution, translated by Ye Qimao and Ni Xiaohui, Beijing, The Commercial Press, June 2014, 1st edition
Editor-in-Charge: Han Shaohua