A road to the past
Taiyuan Villa. Photos: Cai Xianmin/GT
Taiyuan Road, which runs south-to-north, is located in the former French concession in Xuhui district, north of Fenyang Road and south from Zhaojiabang Road. Built from 1918 to 1921, the road was known as Route Delastre until 1943. The less-than-one-kilometer thoroughfare is lined with phoenix trees, but is noticeably short on the boutiques, restaurants, bars and galleries that define so many other streets in the area.
Taiyuan Villa
Most of the buildings along Taiyuan Road have beige-painted exterior walls and black doors. Typical among them is a French-styled garden villa people known as Taiyuan Villa (pictured below) and which is now part of the Ruijin Hotel Taiyuan Villa complex (160 Taiyuan Road).
Built in the 1920s in a late European Renaissance style, the house was previously owned by an English woman surnamed Marcus, and it features French windows, a Mansard roof, a castle-domed penthouse and an interior design best described as eclectic. The imposing lawns surrounding the villa buildings occupy a total area of more than 10,000 square meters. As part of the Ruijin Hotel, the rooms in the Taiyuan Villa are now available to the public - albeit at very high nightly rates. The space also features a couple of fine-dining restaurants: the Roosevelt Prime Steakhouse and the Shanghai Cuisine Restaurant.
Taiyuan Villa was formerly known as the Marshall Mansions, due to the fact that between 1945 and 1947 the US General George C. Marshall lived there. Marshall was dispatched to Shanghai by the US government to mediate between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China after Japan's surrender.
Later political names that lived there include Mao Zedong after the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC). During the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) it became Jiang Qing's (Mao's wife) favored residence.
Taiyuan Villa.
Taiyuan Road isn't as commercially orientated as many surroundings streets, but there are a number of interesting businesses. V.E Design (196A Taiyuan Road) has offered interior decoration design services since it opened for business in September last year and is located on the first floor of an old three-story apartment building. The spacious store is decked out like a French country farmhouse, with elements of Chinese culture mixed in.
With a fireplace at one end of the room, sofas, bookshelves and tables flesh out a dining room that is decorated with stylish adornments such as picture frames, lamps and vases.
"All of the adornments are also for sale," Zhang Dandan, the shop's designer and owner told the the Global Times. "They have been bought by me during my travels and I update them almost every month."
The store also offers custom-made services for bolsters and wallpapers, which are designed and produced by the brand's own factory. The bolsters and wallpapers feature Chinese silk embroidery patterning, and are particularly popular with overseas residents in Shanghai.
At the end of Taiyuan Road, where Fenyang Road and Yueyang Road intersect, is a garden yard that houses the Shanghai Museum of Arts and Crafts (79 Fenyang Road). It is opens from 9 am to 5 pm every day, and the entrance fee is 8 yuan ($1.27). This historic building known as the "White House" exhibits examples of typical local folk art crafts.
The space has more than 500 exhibits split into three categories - Shanghai folk arts (1/F), sculpture (2/F) and embroidery (3/F). They are representative of the so-called Shanghai-styled arts.
This garden mansion was built in 1905, in the late French Renaissance architectural style. It was initially the private residence of the director of the former French Municipal Council (during the former French concession period). The architecture features two broad stairways spiraling up to the entrance to a second floor hall, complete with pillars, semi-circle balconies, and Roman-style long-arched windows.
Before being turned into a museum in 2002, the building was formerly the office of the Asia-Pacific region of the World Health Organization (WHO) and later it became the residence of Chen Yi, the first mayor of Shanghai after the founding of the PRC. Listed as a "protected heritage building" by the Shanghai government, the "White House" even boasts an exact replica at the Shanghai Chedun Film Park, where films tell the history of this famous setting and its famous inhabitants.