China: The Shanghai Exhibition Centre, Shanghai

The Soviet-built Shanghai Exhibition Centre (上海展 览中心; Shanghai Zhanlan Zhongxin) is a fine example of high Socialist Realist architecture and dates from the early 1950s, a time noted for its Sino-Soviet solidarity. The building was designed by a Soviet architect and combines communist symbolism with elements inspired by Eastern Orthodox church architecture.

Shanghai began life as a fishing village, and later as a port receiving goods carried down the Yangzi River. From 1842 onwards, in the aftermath of the first Opium War, the British opened a ‘concession’ in Shanghai where drug dealers and other traders could operate undisturbed. French, Italians, Germans, Americans and Japanese all followed. By the 1920s and 1930s, Shanghai was a boom town and an international byword for dissipation. When the Communists won power in 1949, they transformed Shanghai into a model of the Revolution.

Copyright:

CPA Media Co. Ltd.

Photographer:

David Henley

Credit:

Pictures From Asia

Theme:

SOCIALIST REALISM