About Us

 Historic Shanghai was founded in 1998 by Tess Johnston, Patrick Cranley and Tina Kanagaratnam with the goal of preserving Shanghai’s unique history by raising awareness and appreciation of the city’s remarkable built heritage and social and cultural history.

Nearly a quarter century later, we’re still trying to answer the question we started out asking: how was it that a Chinese coastal city came to have such a rich stock of prewar western architecture, more Art Deco buildings than any other city in the world, a wild, flamboyant, 1930s, became a safe haven for European Jews, and the founding city of the Communist Party of China?

The more answers we find —  in the ephemera of the old markets, in oral histories, and random conversations, maps, memoirs and memories, directories, photographs, books, music, film, and literature, in the buildings themselves, even in food — the more questions that come up, like bamboo shoots after rain.

At the beginning, the pursuit was complicated by the fact that parts of Shanghai’s multilayered history have been deliberately neglected or forgotten. While that’s still a factor, today the complication is gentrification, which all too often goes hand-in-hand with destruction.

Curious about old Shanghai? Join us on a walk through its incredible history, and learn more. For upcoming walks, click here.

Researching old Shanghai and/or your family history in Shanghai?  Tell us what you’re working on, and if we have material in our collection that can help, we’ll be happy to share, or to point you to an expert in the field. info@historic-shanghai.com

In November 2015, Historic Shanghai hosted the 2015  World Congress on Art Deco in Shanghai – a wonderful week of talks, walks and entertainment, held for the first time in Asia in our dynamic city. For more on Shanghai Art Deco, visit www.shanghaiartdeco.net.