The City’s Apartments, Hotels, Office Blocks, Banks, Cinemas and Schools of the Time, at Least the Ones That Still Survive, Stand as Part of the World’s Greatest Endowments of Art Deco Architecture. Every Version Exists in the City, from the “Classic Moderne” of the Bank of China Building on the Bund, to the “Streamline Moderne” of the Ziggurat Broadway Mansions Overlooking Suzhou Creek.

Billboards and Advertising

Shanghai Took Advertising Seriously, Seeing It as a “Modern” Form of Communication. from the 1920S, Ad Agencies Targeted Foreign Companies – Coca-Cola, Dubonnet, Eastman Kodak, Colgate, British American Tobacco – Not to Mention Countless Local Brands, Hoping to Capture the New Shanghai Consumer.

Perhaps Nowhere in Shanghai Embraced Popular Modernity More Than the Canidrome Complex. Opened in 1928, It Dominated an Entire Block of the French Concession. Here, 50,000 Spectators Watched Floodlit Greyhound Racing, Boxing or Open-Air Movies.

Shanghai’s Dance Halls Were a Staple of Life and an Industry. They Created Employment as Dance Teachers Tried to Help Patrons Keep up with New Fads – the Tango, Charleston, Foxtrot.

Ecole Rémi and the Bauhaus

Shanghai’s Continual Embrace of the Modern Allowed Léonard, Along with Other Foreign Architects Such as Paul Veysseyre and René Minutti, to Move from the Adornments of the Beaux-Arts and Art Deco to the More Industrial, Unornamented Bauhaus Style.

The Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts Was Founded in 1912 by Artist Liu Haisu, Who Believed That Traditional Chinese Art Was in a State of Stasis. to Rejuvenate It Required Engaging with Contemporary Foreign Trends, Primarily Post-Impressionism.

Gonda and Shanghai’s Foreign Architects

The Vogue for Foreign “Starchitects” Is Nothing New in China. Hungarian C. H. Gonda Arrived in 1920 to Pioneer an Ultra-Modern Style of Building, the Capitol (146 Huqiu Lu) and Cathay (870 Huaihai Lu) Cinemas, as Well as the Sun Sun Department Store (Nanjing Lu), Among Others.

Without Doubt Victor Sassoon’s Cathay Hotel Was the Art Deco Masterpiece of the 1930S Bund. Its Pyramid Roof Is Redolent of Modernism’s Egyptian Obsession. Opened in 1929, the Hotel Had a Rooftop Nightclub, Jazz Band in the Downstairs Pub, Sassoon’s Personal Cocktail Menu, a Shopping Arcade, Central Heating and Telephones in Every Room.

With Home Interiors We Really See the Fusion of Chinese and Western Influences, the Stylish Mix-and-Match of Blackwood Tables, Chinese Screens, Lacquerware Objets Alongside Art Deco Chairs, Bakelite Telephones and the Latest Gramophone Player.

Founded in 1931, the Juelanshe (Storm Society) Movement Sought to Bring a Parisian-Style Art World to China and Champion Shanghai’s Modernist Artists. Co-Founder Pang Xunqin, Returning to Shanghai from Paris, Declared the Society Wished to Give “Traditional Decorative Art a Modern Context”.

German Artist Käthe Kollwitz Is One of Many Examples of the Major Influence of Foreign Artists on Shanghai, in This Case Woodcuts. Kollwitz Became a Totemic Symbol of Modernism in Shanghai Art Circles Championed by None Other Than Writer Lu Xun, Who Was Deeply Influenced by Her.

Humiliated, Powerless, Certainly Not a Socialist-Realist Hero … Ah Q Is the Symbol of a Weakened China. Lu Moved to Shanghai in 1927 to Live as a Professional Writer and Became a Co-Founder of the League of Left-Wing Writers. He Continues to Be Crucial to the Story of Literary Modernism in China as the Best-Known Exemplar of China’s Involvement in Global Modernism.

Mingxing Studio and Shanghai Films

Audiences Thrilled to Foreign Films – Accessible to Everyone for a Few Coins – Hollywood Westerns as Much as German Expressionist Movies, but They Also Supported Their Own Studios. the 1920S and 30S Became Shanghai Film’s Golden Era with Classics Such as the Goddess (1934), Song of the Fishermen (1934), New Woman (1935) and Street Angels (1937).

Every Modern City Must Have Its Literary Movements and Salons. in Shanghai, One Group, the New Sensationists, Embraced Modernism More Than Any Other. Among the Key Members Were the Writers Mu Shiying, Liu Na’ou and Shi Zhecun, Short-Story Writers Who Accentuated Psychology and Aesthetics over Soviet-Influenced Ideas of Social Realism.

Odeon and Other Shanghai Cinemas

You Can’t See the Odeon That Once Stood on Sichuan Lu Any More. Once Shanghai’s Most Impressive Cinema, It Was Destroyed in 1932 by Japanese Bombs. However, Plenty of Glorious Picture Houses Remain.

Poy Gum Lee and ‘Chinese Deco’

We Shouldn’t Think of All Modernist Architecture in Shanghai as Created by Foreigners. Poy Gum Lee, Who Moved to Shanghai from New York in 1923, Living in the French Concession, Is Credited with the Creation of a Specifically “Chinese Deco” Style. His Modernist Flourishes Can Still Be Seen in the Ywca Building on Yuanmingyuan Lu.

In the 1920S, the Human Form Became Modern, Too. Hair Was Cut, Permed, Nails Varnished, Lips Reddened, Cheeks Rouged and the Silhouette Slimmed. Nothing Symbolises This More in Shanghai Than the Evolution of the Qipao.

Ruan Lingyu and Screen Goddesses

Shanghai Film Stars Were Worshipped by the Masses. Their Faces Adorned Film Magazines and Their Endorsements Were Branding Gold Mines. but the Public and Press Were Fickle. Tastes Changed and New Stars Rose. It Was a Dream to Be a Shanghai Movie Star, but Also for Many a Curse.

Literally “Songs of the Era”, the Popular Blend of Chinese Folk Music, American Jazz and Hollywood Movie Scores Exploded onto the New Nightclubs, Cabarets and Radio Stations of the 1920S. as Ever with the Modern, Shidaiqu Became a Business – Marketed via Sheet Music and 78Rpm Records. Hit Songs Lured Sponsors to the Airwaves.

Graphic Designers Embraced Modernity as Much as Any Other Creative Sect. in Shanghai’s Typography from the 1920S We Can See Influences from the New Soviet Union, German Expressionism, the Socialist Woodcut Movement, Bauhaus and Others.

The Transmission of International Modernism to Shanghai Required Pathways. These Were Chiefly Gramophone Records, Magazines And, of Course, Books. No Bookstore in Shanghai Was as Important as That Run by a Japanese Man, Uchiyama Kanzo, in Hongkou.

Violet (Ziluolan) Is Often Seen as the “House Journal” of the Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies School of Literary Journalists Who Gathered in Tea-Houses and Bookshops in Shanghai’s Old Town (Nantao).

Wing on and Modern Retail

They Have Been Called “Beacons of Modernity” and Keys to the Urban Experience. of Shanghai’s So-Called Great Four Department Stores, Sincere Opened First, in 1917; Wing on in 1918; Sun Sun in 1926; and the Sun in 1936.

Shanghai Went Radio-Crazy in the Early 1920S. the City’s First Station, Radio Corporation of China, Was Founded in 1923. They Soon Proliferated – Krc, Xhma, Xgrs – Mixed Chinese and Western Music, and Included Live Broadcasts from Nightclubs.

Shanghai’s Emblematic Yuefenpai (Literally, Chart of Months) and Their Calendar Girl Images Have Had Enduring Appeal. They Are, Perhaps More Than Anything Else, the Primary Visual Symbol of Republican-Era Shanghai. And, of Course, They Are Inherently Modern – Commercial Advertisements, Art That Hung on Shikumen Walls Regardless of Income or Education. They Were a Visual Modernism That Penetrated Just About Every Shanghai Home.

Zhang Ailing (Eileen Chang)

Zhang, Who Started out as a Freelance Journalist Writing About Fashion and Reviewing Films, Embraced Modernity in All Its Forms, Not Least Her Apartment in the Art Deco Masterpiece Eddington House (195 Changde Lu), Where She Later Wrote Some of Her Best Known and Most Modernist Works, Including the Golden Cangue (1943) and Her Collection of Novellas Love in a Fallen City (Also 1943).

Modernism in Shanghai – an a-Z, from Art Deco via Lu Xun and Wing on to Zhang Ailing

By Robert Thorne

• Oct 8, 2026 • 15 min read

Modernism in Shanghai – an a-Z, from Art Deco via Lu Xun and Wing on to Zhang Ailing

Direct Answer • Key Takeaway

In Asia, No Urbanity Launched Itself into the Experiment of Modernism So Wholeheartedly as Shanghai. Which Makes Sense for Asia’s One True, Freewheeling, Laissez-Faire Melting Pot at the Time. This Most Cosmopolitan of Cities Craved the New, and in the Golden Year's Before the Japanese Invasion of World War Ii, Shanghai’s Denizens Eagerly Blended the City’s Own Chinese Heritage with Contemporary European, American and Japanese Influences.

Robert Thorne

Automotive & Future Transportation Editor

Robert Thorne covers electric vehicle innovations, autonomous driving systems, global mobility trends, and automotive engineering developments.

Tags: modernism shanghai z art deco lu xun and wing