What a WoCo it’s been!

On November 1 2015, we welcomed the Deco World to Shanghai for a week of non-stop Shanghai Art Deco: talks, walks, parties, entertainment, field trips, and the Last Dance, our Shanghai Art Deco Gala Evening.

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The Backstory

It all started in 2007, when Historic Shanghai co-founder Tess Johnston spoke about Shanghai Art Deco at the World Congress in Melbourne. The seed was planted for a World Congress in Shanghai, and four years later, in 2011, Patrick Cranley, president of the heritage organization Historic Shanghai, traveled to Rio de Janeiro and successfully bid for the World Congress to be held in Shanghai in 2015. It would be the first World Congress to be held in Asia.

For more on the history of the World Congress, click here.

We spent four years road-testing routes, talks, menus and entertainment. We hired our Intrepid Interns, the heart, soul and engine of the World Congress, who organized spreadsheets, designed our logo, made our video and put us on the digital map. And on November 1, 2015, we welcomed the Deco World to Shanghai.

 

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The Chinese Art Deco Tour

What better way to kick off a week in China than with some Chinese Art Deco? We toured Shanghai’s best collection of Chinese Art Deco – a style that would feature again and again during our talks in the coming week – on a visit to our Lost Chinese Art Deco city. Chinese motifs on streamlined Art Deco buildings, modernized “Ming Revival” Chinese style buildings – but everyone’s favorite had to be the airplane building!

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The Opening Cocktail

We continued the Chinese Art Deco theme with an opening cocktail at the spectacular Pei Mansion, the onetime home of a wealthy Shanghainese financier, with the rain letting up just in time for us to enjoy cocktails on the lawn.

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The Talks

We were extremely fortunate to have the crème de la crème of Shanghai Art Deco scholars and experts, many of whom have spent decades researching different aspects of Shanghai Art Deco.

To download the program: ADC program

Art Deco: A Vital Strand of China’s Multiple Modernities: Dr. Edward Denison, author of Modernism in China; Luke Him Sau, Architect; & Building Shanghai and the upcoming Ultra-Modernism: Architecture & Modernism in Manchuria

Motifs in Art Nouveau & Art Deco: To and From China: Lynn Pan, author of Shanghai Style

Hudec in the Shanghai Imagination: Michelle Qiao, author of Shanghai Hudec Architecture, Wm Patrick Cranley, president, Historic Shanghai

Art Deco Design in Chinese Films: Dr. Linda Johnson, Royal Asiatic Society film convenor

Pre-Dinner Talk: “100 Years of Shanghai’s Expat History: Tess Johnston, author of Shanghai Art Deco 

Shanghai’s Grand Art Deco Hotels: Peter Hibbard, author of Peace at the Cathay

Texture, Ornament, Energy: Art Deco and Shanghai Typography Design: Karolina Pawlik, anthropologist & art historian

Shanghai Art Deco Interiors: Spencer Dodington, author of Shanghai’s Art Deco Master

László Hudec’s Shanghai Art Deco: Virág Csejdy, Hudec Cultural Foundation, Hungary)

Shanghai’s Art Deco Master: Paul Veysseyre : Charles Legrange, author of Shanghai’s Art Deco Master

Shanghai Nightscapes: Dr. Andrew Field, author of Shanghai’s Dancing World: Cabaret Culture & Urban Politics & Shanghai Nightscapes: A Nocturnal Biography of a Global City

Rediscovering the Hybrid Modernism of Poy Gum Lee: Kerri Culhane, architectural historian & curator of “Chinese Style: Rediscovering the Architecture of Poy Gum Lee”

The Father of Chinese Art Deco: Liu Jipiao: Jennifer Wong, Liu Jipiao’s granddaughter & researcher

Conservation of China’s Urban Heritage: Professor Shen Xiaoming, architect has restored numerous Shanghai Art Deco landmarks.

The Art Deco Department Stores of Shanghai: The Chinese Australian Connection: Peter Hack

Boulevard Moscou: Russians, Art Deco & Shanghai: Katya Knyazeva, journalist, researcher and expert on Russians in old Shanghai.

Tropical Asian Art Deco: Singapore’s Debt to Shanghai Art Deco: Dr. Julian Davidson, author of Singapore Shophouse

Art Deco Movies, Mansions & Mausoleums in Manila: Ivan Man Dy, founder of Old Manila Walks

Chinese Exotica in California in the Art Deco Era: Therese Poletti, author of Art Deco San Francisco, the Architecture of Timothy Pflueger

Welcome to Cleveland! 14^th World Congress 2017: Dr. Mick Beyer, 20^th Century Society USA

A Personal Look at Shanghai in the 1930s: Patricia Luce Chapman, author, Tea on the Great Wall.

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The Walks

Bund & Beyond with Peter Hibbard

Old Chinese City with Katya Knyazeva

Around the Racecourse with Spencer Dodington & Tina Kanagaratnam

Bubbling Well Road with Tina Kanagaratnam, Christina Shmigel & York-Chi Harder

The French Concession with Patrick Cranley

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The Opera

Kun Opera is the regional opera that was very popular in Shanghai during the Art Deco era – and the Shanghai theater just happens to be in an Art Deco building, the former Cercle de la Police (Police Club). Extra added bonus: they dressed up some of our participants, including Art Deco Society of New York’s Alex Disbrow, in traditional opera garb – isn’t he spectacular?

 

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The Dinners

Art Deco evenings included dinners in historic locations, featuring traditional menus, and some terrific speakers, too.

Qian Xiang Fang

In the restaurant and ballroom of the historic Wing On Department Store.

Okura Garden Hotel, Grand Ballroom

In the Art Deco ballroom of the former Cercle Sportif Français.

Fu 1039

A classic Shanghai dinner in a classic Shanghai mansion.

Last Dance: The Shanghai Art Deco Farewell Gala

We ended the Shanghai World Congress in style, with a Gala in the Ballroom of the former Cathay Hotel (today the Fairmont Peace Hotel), Shanghai’s Art Deco jewel. We dined on a vintage menu, based on a 1931 Cathay Hotel menu, danced, and had oodles of fun with friends, new and old, from around the Deco-world. A terrific ending to a terrific week!

More photos on our Facebook page.