Every­where you go in Shang­hai spaces are pro­duct­ively and ima­gin­at­ively occu­pied. Hugh Bohane intro­duces us to his favour­ite streets and the most cre­at­ive neigh­bour­hoods of his city.

From the street corner, to the pub­lic parks and the fore­courts of large build­ings, people make the spaces their own. There is a pub­lic sense of own­er­ship over the streets, which is con­stantly chan­ging from morn­ing to night.

Tai Chi | Photo by Hugh Bohane

In the early morn­ings you see eld­ers doing Tai Chi or Water Cal­li­graphy on the pave­ments. By 8 am, the mil­lions of busi­ness people com­mute to their office spaces. By night­fall, eld­ers are play­ing cards and ball­room dan­cing and the young have roller dis­cos on the street corners or in pub­lic parks.

The way people occupy spaces here is very cre­at­ive and you get the feel­ing that the people really own the streets. They dress and fur­nish the streets dry­ing clothes and pla­cing street fur­niture and per­sonal arti­facts out­side some of their homes.

Daily lives are played out as if it is one massive street per­form­ance. The city is the back­drop to the theatre of Shang­hai life.

Changle Road

Changle Road | Photo by Hugh Bohane

Changle Road is in the former French Con­ces­sion of Shang­hai, situ­ated in the down­town area of Jingan.

It’s a beau­ti­ful tree-lined street with many old vil­las and lane apart­ments. This area is defined by its old archi­tec­ture, away from the mod­ern mega malls. The boutiques occupy the ground floor of small apart­ment build­ings, giv­ing them an intim­ate and per­sonal feel.

There are hun­dreds of designer cloth­ing shops, accessory/toy shops here as well as a bookshop/cafe and some styl­ish res­taur­ants with cozy seat­ing out­side. This place is very pop­u­lar with young people for its one off pieces of cloth­ing, designed by the hippest young designers.

Here you can find China’s first skate­board­ing shop, Fly Streetwear, star­ted by Shang­hainese local Jeff Han. Skate-boarding cul­ture is quickly tak­ing off here in Shang­hai. The street itself has an almost Japan­ese or European influ­ence, but is still uniquely Shanghainese.

Taik­ang Road

Taik­ang Road | Photo by Hugh Bohane

Taik­ang Road is loc­ated near the former French Con­ces­sion and is today one of Shanghai’s main art streets. It is made up of small lanes where many artists, res­taur­ant own­ers and local design­ers have star­ted up busi­ness. The street attracts fash­ion­able loc­als, expats and curi­ous tourists.

Here you can find many art gal­ler­ies, stu­dios and shops that fea­ture Shang­hai based col­lect­ors, jew­el­ers, design­ers, paint­ers and photographers.

The street has a classy but com­fort­able atmo­sphere and you can find many inter­est­ing works here. Whether its vin­tage sunglasses or jade ear­rings, cre­at­ive cul­ture is defin­ing the street. One of the high­lights is the strik­ing and iconic works of Shang­hai based pho­to­grapher, Jin Xuan­min. Jin Xuanmin’s work focuses on the every­day life in the lanes which are quickly trans­form­ing into today’s Shanghai.

Fuzhou Road

Near Fuzhou Road | Photo by Hugh Bohane

Fuzh­hou Road is near People Square and is well known for being one of the city’s main cul­tural streets. Walk­ing through here you really get the feel­ing you are in the heart of the city centre. Here you can see book stores and sta­tion­ery stores that sell writ­ing brushes, ink brushes, ink stones, rice paper and other sta­tion­ary supplies.

Fuzhou Road has a for­eign book­store as well as the China Sci­ence and Tech­no­logy Books Cor­por­a­tion, the Shang­hai Cul­tural Com­mer­cial Build­ing, the clas­sic­al­b­Book store, Shang­hai artistic goods store, Shang­hai paper man­u­fac­turer and more. Shang­hai Book City is among one of the ten des­ig­nated cul­tural land­marks by the Shang­hai Muni­cipal People’s Government.

Which neigh­bour­hoods in your city inspire you, which streets bustle with activ­ity from morn­ing till night, or are home to new move­ments in cul­ture and cre­ativ­ity? Intro­duce us to your streets and you could be in the run­ning to win a trip to Lon­don Fest­ival of Archi­tec­ture 2010.