Shaping the bund, public spaces and planning process in the Shanghai International Settlement, 1843-1943

Abstract

The Shanghai Bund is the classic symbol of Chinese economic strength and vigor in the early twentieth century. It was one of the most attractive waterfront public open spaces in Asia, and constituted the heart of communal life for both foreign and Chinese communities. This paper investigates the history of the public space of the Shanghai Bund，in terms of its shaping, representing and using. It unveils the four major social parties which had involved in shaping the street gridiron, the public buildings, the public parks, and the waterfront promenade. First to be the British colonial authority that had occasionally compromised to the demands of the Chinese to secure the trade profit. Second is the Chinese authority that had struggled for it conceptual and instrumental control over the foreign settlement. Third is the small group of powerful people called the “Bund Lot Holders” that had demanded the exclusive rights over the Bund. Finally is the ordinary Foreign Land Renters, with the Municipal Council has their Trustee, who had sought to make the Bund into an orderly public spaces for recreation amenity. The paper concludes that the landscape of the Shanghai Bund should not simply be considered as a symbol of “Western modernity”. It also reflected the complicated processes of conflict and compromise among various social parties, in which each party must be seen as participants in the same historical trajectory.