Shanghai plays a pivotal role in China's modern history, and every old house in the concession has a story to tell. Whether you're looking for an in-depth tour of Shanghai or a closer look at the Bund's architectural ensemble, the Shanghai History Museum should be your first stop.
In the past, the Shanghai History Museum had always rented space and moved from place to place, but at the end of 2017, it finally settled on Nanjing West Road and reopened. The new hall is large and beautiful, covering an area of about 10,000 square meters, and almost all of it is an exhibition hall. More than 1,100 sets of cultural relics provide a comprehensive picture of how Shanghai has transformed from a small border town to an important city in the Far East, and it is worth mentioning that more than 80% of the cultural relics have not been exhibited before.
The museum is divided into two buildings, east and west, the east building is the basic exhibition hall, and it is subdivided into three parts: the preface hall, ancient Shanghai and modern Shanghai. The prologue hall is very carefully displayed, and the bronze lions originally located in front of HSBC were placed in the exhibition hall, and they were named Stephen and Shi Di, representing the general manager of HSBC in Hong Kong and the manager of the Shanghai branch of HSBC at that time. The bronze lion is majestic and shocking, and it also reminds tourists that "opening the port", "trade" and "finance" are lines that cannot be ignored when understanding the history of Shanghai. The sedan chair next to it is also the treasure of the town hall, which was completed by 10 carvers for 10 years, and represents traditional culture more than the bronze lion. The south wall is a huge LCD screen, scrolling to play the 6-minute "A Brief History of Shanghai". On the east side, there is a huge electronic touch screen, which can accommodate more than 20 people to check the hydrological changes and changes in the scale of the city in Shanghai in the past 6,000 years, and it is mainly displayed through pictures, which is very intuitive.
The second floor is the ancient Shanghai exhibition hall, starting from the ancient nature and prehistoric civilization, combing the context of the town, and showing the ancient agricultural civilization, and the cultural relics are mostly unearthed in Songze, Guangfulin, Fuquan Mountain and other sites. The most famous skulls of the Majiabang culture tombs, known as the "first man in Shanghai", claim to push the prehistoric civilization of Shanghai to 4000-5000 BC, although it is unknown whether these tribal civilizations survived the competition and completed reproduction. The exhibits of cultural relics from the various dynasties of the Han Dynasty are similar to those of other urban history museums.
The third floor or above is the modern Shanghai exhibition hall, and the entrance of the exhibition hall is equipped with three-dimensional paintings, with an oblique 45 ° and an oblique 135 ° viewing effect is very different, showing the Bund scenes of different eras, the vicissitudes of the sea, which is embarrassing. The interior of the exhibition hall records in detail the situation before and after the opening of the port, as well as the news and education situation at that time, and it is well known that Shanghai at that time was significantly ahead of other Chinese cities in these fields. Visitors with no interest in history will also find it interesting, with old-fashioned merchandise on display in the exhibition halls, and a closer look will reveal that many modern brands such as Shell Oil have already landed in Shanghai.
If you want to visit the Bund in depth, you may also want to spend more time in the Modern Hall, where there is a lot of information about the concession area, and even the changes in road names and the history of famous buildings are also listed, so stocking up on information in advance can make the trip more interesting. Browsing the history of the four major comprador companies, it can be found that the comprador company is actually equivalent to the current Haitao physical store, and the headquarters of each company are all in Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street, they are already state-owned enterprises, no longer operating "compradors", but still in business, no more than 1 km away from the museum.
Compared with many other exhibition halls, the Shanghai History Museum has a larger interpretation team, and its explanations cover a wide range and are highly frequent, so you may wish to follow along when browsing the exhibition halls. Since the pavilion building was only renovated in 2015, the facilities are more advanced and innovative, and many electronic devices are widely equipped to be practical and reliable. However, both the façade and the interior of the building have maintained their style, and many visitors marvel at the exquisite horsehead decoration of the staircase handrails. This has to do with history, the museum itself is a historical building, the former Shanghai Horse Racing Association. If you want to learn more about the history of the Jockey Club, you can move to the West Building, which is a different world.
On the second floor, there is also the "Shanghai City Memory" Art Hall, which exhibits a total of 21 oil paintings, which take people, time, and architecture as the starting point. We recommend that you browse the exhibition halls before leaving the East Wing to take a closer look and reminisce about what you saw in the museum.
