Wukang Road

Wukang Road runs about a kilometre through the former French Concession, lined with plane trees planted a century ago and with villas, apartment blocks and lane houses built between the 1910s and 1940s in Spanish, Tudor, Art Deco and modernist styles, many of them listed. Its landmark is the Wukang Mansion, formerly the Normandie Apartments, completed in 1924 to a design by László Hudec on a wedge-shaped site so that it presents a narrow prow to the junction, a building compared with the Flatiron in New York. The street has become one of Shanghai's most photographed, to the point that crowds at the mansion corner are managed at weekends.

History

In 1897 John Calvin Ferguson, an American educator and president of the Nanyang Public School, the forerunner of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, built the road with his own salary so that staff and students could reach the school, and it was named Route Ferguson after him. It was paved in 1907 and widened by the French Concession, renamed Wukang Road in 1943 after Wukang County in Zhejiang, and over the 20th century was home to writers such as Ba Jin and Zheng Zhenduo and the singer Zhou Xuan; in 2011 it was named one of China's national historic and cultural streets (Wikipedia, Wukang Road).

Highlights

• Wukang Mansion - the 1924 wedge-shaped apartment block at the junction.
• The plane-tree canopy - century-old trees arching over the street.
• The villas - listed houses in Spanish, Tudor, Deco and modernist styles.
• The concession streetscape - the wider grid of quiet tree-lined roads.

When to go

March to May and September to November, when the plane trees are in leaf or turning; autumn colour in November is the peak photographic season. Weekends bring heavy crowds at the mansion corner, which is managed with barriers.

What to expect

Most buildings are private residences or offices and cannot be entered. The mansion corner is crowded with photographers and queues at weekends. The street is a walk rather than an attraction, and interpretation is limited to plaques.

Nearby

The Xuhui concession streets spread around it; Tianzifang lies east.

Key facts