文档介绍：Journal of Modern Chinese History
Vol. 4, No. 1, June 2010, 1–27
ARTICLE
The Shanghai Bund in myth and history: an essay through textual and
visual sources
Christian Henriot*
Institut d’Asie Orientale (CNRS), University of Lyon, Lyon
The Bund ranks first in any introduction to Shanghai in contemporary guides as a ‘‘must
see’’ place where one can go to discover the wonders of Shanghai and its now sanitized
and non-controversial past. Current accounts usually point to the bizarre architectural
heritage that the municipal government has lately chosen to turn into a tourist attraction
for domestic and foreign consumption alike. The present paper intends to unveil a much
plex and multi-layered history. It relies on a large body of materials, especially
visual sources, to document the transformation of an undistinguished space – a riverfront
– into a central place of political, social and architectural juxtaposition. This exploration
will start from the earliest visual records of the city, made by Chinese or Western residents
and travelers and move into the late 1940s. This paper weaves different threads to
highlight the various layers of discourse that ‘‘made the Bund’’ while at the same time
blending textual and visual sources to illustrate its changing nature over time, from a
commercial entrepot to a cityscape devoted to finance and leisure.
Keywords: urban; visual; architecture; Shanghai; representation
While Shanghai evokes mixed images of glamour, exoticism, a Sino–Western hybrid, the
Bund has almost e its metonym par excellence. The Bund ranks first in any introduc-
tion to the city in contemporary guides as a ‘‘must see’’ place where one can go to discover
the wonders of Shanghai and its now sanitized and non-controversial past. Current accounts
usually point to the bizarre architectural heritage that the municipal government has lately
chosen to turn into a tourist attraction for domestic and foreign consumptio