Importing American architectureto China: the practice of JohnPortman & Associates in Shanghai

Charlie Qiuli Xue, Yingchun Li Division of Building Science and Technology,

City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

The urban space of Shanghai has been forcefully shaped by American architects during the

past thirty years. Among these movers and shakers, John Portman & Associates is the most

notable because it was the pioneering American commercial design practice to enter

Shanghai. It has actively participated in the process of Chinese urbanisation since the

early 1980s. This paper reviews the practice’s design projects in Shanghai: namely, the

Shanghai Centre, the Bund Centre and Tomorrow Square. Each project — its intention,

design, and usage — is analysed from the perspective of Chinese modernity in a ‘global-

local’ context. The authors try to reveal the historic process of how American design

rewove the urban fabric of Shanghai, and the reasons for and impacts of importing architec-

ture from the West to contemporary China.

1. Introduction

Since the open door policy was adopted, China has

undertaken a drive towards modernisation and wit-

nessed an exponential growth in construction

activity. From the 1980s, large-scale building works

designed by foreign architects have spread from

the coast and into the hinterland cities. A similar

importation of overseas design was seen in the

Middle East in the 1970s, and in Japan and other

fast-growing Asian countries in the 1980s–1990s.

But none of the countries in the world has experi-

enced the importation of foreign architectural

design of such immense quantity in such a short

period.

The staggering increase of foreign-designed

buildings is driven by China’s open door policy, the

steady pace toward modernisation and the develo-

pers’ intentions of promoting their image interna-

tionally. Now that Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou

and other cities are determined to become ‘inter-

national metropolises’, they must follow the lead

of existing world cities such as London, New York

and Tokyo. To help shape the international metropo-

lis, international architects of repute may be invited

to propose designs rather than relying solely on the

expertise of local design institutes.1

Historically, Chinese modernity in Shanghai spans

from the late 1920s, to its climax in the 1930s. The

spatial backdrop of ‘Chinese modernity’ is its urban

culture, physically shaped by American Art Deco-

style buildings.2 This phenomenon of importation

of foreign architectural design reappeared in China

after the country adopted an open door policy in

1980.

Within the trend of importing foreign architecture

to China, American design plays an important role,

in terms of quantity and quality. According to Xue,

American design firms have completed more than

thirty building projects in Shanghai, the largest city

and economic centre in China, since 1980: more

than 60% are shopping arcades or Class A office

complexes3 and they are generally regarded as

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# 2008 The Journal of Architecture 1360–2365 DOI: 10.1080/13602360802214786

development milestones and landmarks in various

districts. American designs obviously outnumber

the building works designed by Japanese and Euro-

pean architects in Shanghai during the same period.

In fact, imported American design has rewoven

the contemporary urban space and fabric of Shang-

hai (Fig. 1). This is partly because of Shanghai’s

(American Art Deco) tradition before communist

rule, and the commercial model provided by Ameri-

can architects most closely matching the ‘modernity’

illusion of Shanghai people.4

John Portman & Associates is the earliest Ameri-

can architectural firm practising in Shanghai,

where the firm has carried out a series of spectacular

and impressive projects in both Shanghai and China

generally. Only by reading Portman can one reach a

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Importing American

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Charlie Qiuli Xue,

Yingchun Li

Figure 1. The site plan

of West Nanjing Road,

section from Shimen

Road to Changshu

Road. One of the five

CBDs in Shanghai, the

area’s buildings are

mainly designed by

overseas design

practices, half of them

American.

comprehensive picture of urban development in

Shanghai during the past 30 years. Through investi-

gation and analysis, the authors reveal how the

American practice has played a unique role in recon-

structing the urban space of Shanghai, and the

internal and external reasons which enabled this

process. The paper investigates three Portman build-

ings from a perspective of ‘global-local’ dichotomy

and the construction of Chinese ‘modernity’. The

cases are viewed as a bilateral process: on the one

hand, they reconstruct the ‘modern’ urban space

of China, and on the other, they are accepted and

modified according to local conditions and historic

characteristics. By analysing the development

process of the Portman buildings, the authors

hope to gain a rational reading of the contemporary

Chinese city.

John Portman is a key and controversial figure of

late modernist architecture in the United States.

Portman’s design follows some key principles: the

deep concern for ‘urban effect’, the sensational

and psychological satisfaction of people and the cre-

ation of ‘a place for being’. This ‘popular’ attitude

actually challenged the orthodox modernism of the

1960s. Portman’s ideas, of combining design excel-

lence with economic feasibility, and contributing to

the community by ‘bold and pragmatic architectural

attempts’, were extensively realised through his own

practice both as architect and developer.5

In early 1979, the Chinese vice-premier, Deng

Xiaoping, made an ice-breaking visit to the United

States, and lived in the West Peachtree Plaza Hotel

Portman designed in Atlanta. Deng was impressed

and invited Portman to design an hotel in China.6

Portman visited China in the same year. Owing to

the rigid policy of China at the time, Portman had

to open his office in Hong Kong instead, so the

first office opened its doors there in 1979; and in

1993, a branch office was finally set up in Shanghai.

It was one of the first American architectural prac-

tices entering China during the early years of the

open door policy in China. The company has

designed more than 30 projects in China. Portman’s

visions were largely implemented in China because

of his personal involvement in all design projects.

Shanghai Centre (1990), Bund Centre (2002) and

Tomorrow Square (2004) are the most important

built projects of Portman in Shanghai; they exerted

extensive influence on the urban space of Shanghai,

and bore witness to the city’s growth at different

periods.

2. Shanghai Centre: the outpost of American

design

The Shanghai Centre was conceived in 1981. The

site was originally the executive’s residential quarters

of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corpor-

ation, built in 1906, and had the extended central

axis of the Shanghai Exhibition Centre (originally

Sino-Soviet Unions Friendship Building, 1955)

running through the site. The project was a joint

investment and development by the Shanghai Exhi-

bition Centre, Portman Group, AIG of US and Kajima

Corporation of Japan. It was designed by John

Portman & Associates and the Kajima Corporation

of Japan, with local design consultation by the East

China Institute of Building Design, and was con-

structed by the Kajima Corporation (general con-

tractor). The Portman Group was the main

developer, designer and estate manager. In the

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beginning, Portman enacted a plan of making a

building similar to his concept for the ‘merchandise

mart’ of Atlanta, USA, which aimed to promote

demand for hotel and commercial space in a simi-

larly declining older area. After long discussions

with local government, the programme for the

Shanghai Centre was finally confirmed as a

complex of hotel, office, flats and retail spaces to

appeal to expatriates living in Shanghai. Building

construction started in 1986, and was completed

in 1990.

Costing 210 million US dollars, the Shanghai

Centre has a gross floor area of 185,000 square

metres and a building height of 165 metres; it was

the tallest building in Shanghai when completed.

The 48-storey Portman Ritz-Carlton Hotel is in the

centre, and is flanked by two 34-storey towers of

flats in the east and west. The office section is in

the first eight storeys. A theatre of 1,000 seats is pro-

jected towards the Nanjing Road, and retail stores

and restaurants are packed into a two-storey-high

podium. The prototype for these concentrated

building blocks designed in a symmetric layout

were first seen in Portman’s cross plan at the Renais-

sance Centre, Detroit, in 1976. It was here, perhaps

for the first time, that Portman designed an urban

courtyard space with high-rise towers enclosing its

three sides. Its internal focus and sharp colour

form a strong visual impact within the city. The tri-

tower and court prototype has been repeated in

other China projects: for example, the New Asian

Centre (1994), Bund Centre (2002) and the Silver

Tie Centre of Beijing (2007) (Fig. 2).

Although a comprehensive building with compli-

cated functions, the Shanghai Centre impresses

people mainly as a semi-indoor atrium, visually and

psychologically: open to the Nanjing Road, the

four-storey-high atrium is supported by red painted

columns, and two classical arches that mark vehicu-

lar ingress and egress (Figs. 3, 4) . Central escalators

and spiral staircases lead to the theatre, office and

retail areas, surrounded by this vehicular drop-off

route. Beside the vehicular route are pedestrian

space, fountains, and a garden. Various elements

are superimposed here: the simplified Chinese

bracket (dougong), a spiral staircase, deformed

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Yingchun Li

Figure 2. Comparison

of Portman’s designs:

(a) Renaissance Centre

of Detroit, (b) Shanghai

Centre, (c) New Asian

Centre, (d) Bund Centre

and (e) the Silver Tie

Centre of Beijing — all

these buildings adopt a

tri-tower prototype.

Roman arch and a decorated Chinese roofing porch,

waterfall and pond with garden stones, intermixed

with fashionable shops, a high podium and stone

balustrades. All these reflect the designers’ imagin-

ation of blending ‘traditional Chinese culture’ (here

mainly imperial Beijing culture) with American pop

arts in the early years of globalisation. In this case,

the designers used ‘Chinese elements’, although

somewhat childish, partly from the design intentions

of localising the public space concept and also pleas-

ing expatriates. The red columns and ‘Chinese

elements’ no doubt bring a festive atmosphere to

this semi-public space. In the early 1990s, this

huge open space, mixed with modern and foreign

flavours, strongly enticed people in Shanghai. On

one hand, this lure embodied the western (mainly

American) idea of ‘modern civilisation’, and on the

other, it aroused a collective memory of Shanghai

in its glorious 1930s — big-nose foreigners, trendy

motor cars, the smell of coffee and cakes... This ‘col-

lective memory’ was rediscovered mainly through

films and books emerging from the early 1990s,

but the Shanghai Centre told people physically

about the charm and prosperity that Shanghai

once had. The popularity of the Shanghai Centre is

evidenced in two public awards recognising ‘favour-

able buildings’ in Shanghai, being the popular

favourite in both 1995 and 1999.7

The Shanghai Centre attracts people and extensive

praise, mainly through its atrium and openness,

rather than its tall mass. It became a tourist attraction

in the early years of its operation, as design pro-

fessionals, companies and schools organised tours

of the Centre. A discussion seminar on the building

was held, on which the local media reported enthu-

siastically. This ‘public space’ no doubt originates

from Portman’s continuous persistence in bringing

together the ‘public’ and the ‘city’. But in Shanghai,

contrary to the designer’s desires, it contains some

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Figure 3. Section of the

Shanghai Centre.

Figure 4. The entrance

of the Shanghai Centre

and the city.

exclusions and elements of alienation, partly because

of its sharp contrast with people’s plain daily life.

More precisely, we can identify the open space of

the Shanghai Centre as a ‘limited permitted space’.

As pointed out by Professor Saskia Sassen, a limited

permitted space is a ‘globalised space’, which

mainly serves international business people and

elites. They form a new townscape (Figs. 5, 6).8

A similar public enthusiasm for visiting building

landmarks could be found in 1934, when Shanghai’s

tallest building, the Park Hotel, designed by Ladi-

slans Edward Hudec (1893–1958), was completed

in the Nanjing Road. Clad with black granite and

brown tiles, the building was designed in an Art

Deco style and served ‘international business’

people. During the late 1980s, Shanghai had

already experienced a series of luxurious buildings

designed by foreign architects: for example, the

Garden Hotel (1989) by the Japanese firm Obayashi

Corporation and the Hilton Hotel (1988) by Hong

Kong architects Andrew Li and Alex Lui. Fabulous

as they are, most of these buildings are enclosed,

proud, coldly standing as they stare out at the city.

The Shanghai Centre constituted an exemplar with

its ‘open gesture’, which was further elaborated by

later constructions, such as the popular Xintiandi

(New Horizon, 2001), scheme by the American prac-

tice Wood & Zapata.

3. Bund Centre: townscape at the waterfront

If the Shanghai Centre is a noble and enticing open

space, the Bund Centre reflects more an image of a

‘crown’ in the waterfront. The Bund Centre is

located in a trapezoid plot of central land, defined

by four roads named Yan’an, Henan, Guangdong

and Jiangxi. The Huangpu River is 200 metres

away to its east, and the old Shanghai city (Qing

Dynasty 1864–1911) is located towards its southern

vicinity. In the early 1990s, the Shanghai Golden

Bund Real Estate Co Ltd., a joint venture between

Chinese-Indonesian enterprise and the Huangpu

District, planned to build the ‘best’ landmark in the

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Importing American

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Charlie Qiuli Xue,

Yingchun Li

Figure 5.

Accommodating

fashionable boutique

shops, the court is both

busy and airy, and

shows the designer’s

imagination of blending

‘traditional Chinese

culture’ with American

pop arts in the early

years of globalisation.

traditional Bund area, as the city entered the ‘fast

lane’ to growth. Unlike the Shanghai Centre, the

client for the Bund Centre imposed some require-

ments that architects felt reluctant to accept. If the

Shanghai Centre partly realised the architect’s inten-

tions, the Bund Centre was basically a product of the

client’s ideas.

Costing 400 million US dollars, the project started in

1996 and was completed in 2002. Occupying a site of

20,000 square metres, the building has a gross floor

area of 190,000 square metres, with a similar layout

to the Shanghai Centre. The 198-metre, 50-storey

high office tower stands in the centre, topped with

a ‘crown’, flanked by two 26-storey towers of flats.

The three towers surround a sky-lit indoor atrium.

During construction, the client changed one tower

of flats to an hotel, and after completion another

tower was changed to hotel use as well, in 2006,

managed by the Westin Group (Fig. 7).

The ‘Westin Buffet’ is now synonymous with

classy entertainment in Shanghai. The brand is

partly defined by its successful interior design. The

concept of an atrium first appeared in the Roman

era, and was widely adopted during the Renais-

sance. In the early 1960s, Portman might be argu-

ably the first person to apply the atrium space to

commercial buildings, mainly hotels, with contem-

porary significance. The atrium space of the Bund

Centre is four storeys high, and covered with steel

trusses and a glass skylight. The tall main entrance

of the hotel opens to the atrium, which is enriched

by wide balconies on four sides, filled with restau-

rants and entertainment shops. People experience

a ‘see’ and ‘be seen’ thrill in this space. The deco-

rated columns, cantilevered spiral staircases and pro-

jecting semi-circular balconies, together with the

exuberant plants and lighting, present a concerted

effect of a dramatic and festive atmosphere. The

interior space of the Bund Centre is a complete

representation of the typical Portman ‘hotel

atrium’ in Shanghai, a pure work of postmodernism,

rather than the ambiguous juxtaposition of Chinese

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Figure 6. The ‘limited

permitted space’ in

Shanghai, where

ordinary Chinese people

were barred

psychologically and

financially: (a) the

foreigners’ park in

modern Shanghai,

1930s; (b) the atrium of

the Shanghai Centre,

1990; (c) Xintiandi

plaza, 2001.

and western elements like the Shanghai Centre. It

was what the client wanted, although the interior

decoration was designed by a firm other than Port-

man’s (Fig. 8).

The British Royal Crown is a symbol (logo) of the

developer Golden Bund Real Estate. It was mainly

the idea of the client. The design for the crown

was revised sixteen times in two years. The steel

crown consists of three groups of spatial, curvilinear

rods. There are three layers of leaves. The inner and

middle layers contain eight leaves separately, and

the outer layer has sixteen leaves. Each leaf sits on

a footing 6.45 metres high. The crown is 25

metres high, 58 metres in diameter and 582 tons

in weight. The silver-grey coloured crown is deco-

rated with gold neon, and shines magnificently in

the evening. In Shanghai, people mostly interpret

this crown as a lotus flower (Fig. 9).

The Bund Centre is the tallest building in the Bund

area. But very few people in Shanghai know its

name and the exact location. It is known for its

highly raised crown, and also its dinner buffet in

the elite section. The 198-metre high building

aggressively dominates the symbolic skyline of the

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Charlie Qiuli Xue,

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Figure 7. The Bund

Centre, Shanghai,

2002: left, the plan and

layout are formal and

grand — typical

Portman style, which

serves well commercial

clients, especially

hoteliers; right, site plan

of the Bund Centre –

the building complex

occupies a whole street

block.

Shanghai Bund first built in the 1930s. However, the

Bund Centre may balance and be read together with

another group of tall buildings on the other side of

the Huangpu River, the Oriental Pearl TV Tower

and Jinmao Building of Pudong (Fig. 10).

The Bund Centre scheme was initiated in 1993:

most ideas, including the crown, came not from

the architect but from the client. This work is not

seen in any book or catalogue of John Portman &

Associates.9 In the early 1990s, the submission and

governmental control system were not yet estab-

lished as they are now. The scheme, in such a sensi-

tive heritage preservation district, was not

developed through any professional committee.

The Bund Centre was completed 12 years after

the Shanghai Centre — the very first Portman

work in China. During this 12-year period, Shanghai

experienced intensive construction on the two sides

of the Huangpu River. Besides American and Japa-

nese architects, European architects started their

expedition in China. Against this backdrop, the

Bund Centre is only one of many ‘fabulous’

imported buildings: it was not popular in Shanghai’s

architectural world.

4. Tomorrow Square: iconic interpretation

in the historic townscape

Entering the twenty-first century, the Chinese gov-

ernment demonstrated unprecedented zeal for

‘connecting with the international track’.10 Although

prepared earlier, Tomorrow Square was eventually

completed in 2004.

Tomorrow Square is located in a right-angled tra-

pezoid site off the Nanjing and Huangpu Roads,

close to the People’s Park. The building was devel-

oped by a joint venture of the NGS Group and the

Pudong Development Bank — the client is a semi-

state-owned organisation. The People’s Park was

once the horse racecourse of the British concession

in 1862, and a typical ‘limited permit space’ in old

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Figure 8. Atrium and

entrance of the Bund

Centre: it is always busy

and noisy in Portman’s

‘shared space’.

Shanghai. The area is virtually the heart of central

Shanghai, and has been paid high attention by the

government. During the inception period of Tomor-

row Square, the area already saw several key public

buildings completed — the Shanghai Museum

(1993), designed by Xing Tonghe of the Shanghai

Institute of Building Design, and the Grand Shanghai

Theatre(1998), by Jean-Marie Charpentier et Associes

of France. The Tomorrow Square has a greater impact

on the city owing to its height and image (Fig. 11).

Tomorrow Square (Fig. 12) occupies a site of 11,340

square metres, with a gross floor area of 93,000

square metres. The 55-storey tower reaches 285

metres, and was the tallest building on the west side

of the Huangpu River when it was completed in

2003. The tower is square in shape, and descends to

the ground, surrounded by a round atrium. In this

scheme, the six-storey podium was designed as food

court, ballroom court and entrance to the under-

ground. Retail shops are located from the 1st to 3rd

floors; restaurants on the 4th floor, with conference

centres and gyms on the 5th floor. The 7th to 35th

floors of the tower are designed as office space, the

36th floor acts as a facility and refuge floor, and the

tower twists 45 degrees from the 37th floor, which

marks the beginning of the hotel. During construc-

tion, the office programme was changed to flats,

and the office element was condensed into the

podium floors. The cladding and external image of

Tomorrow Square are well shaped, while the interior

design and technical details are relatively rough, not

compatible with what it deserves.

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Importing American

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Charlie Qiuli Xue,

Yingchun Li

Figure 9. The

elaboration of the

‘crown’ in the design

process.

Figure 10. The skyline

of the Bund on the west

bank of the Huangpu

River: the Bund Centre,

on the left-hand side,

obviously dwarfs the

traditional colonial

buildings.

About the characteristics of ‘Chinese modernity’,

Leo Lee, a Harvard University scholar, thinks that

China’s modernity is presented as the confrontation

of the ‘now’ and the ‘ancient’. The ‘now’ is a critical

moment, which breaks from the past, and connects

to a ‘splendid future’.11 Architecturally, Tomorrow

Square represents a ‘modern breakaway’.

The other two Portman-designed buildings were

developed by Chinese-foreign joint-venture compa-

nies. Portman was even one of the developers for

the Shanghai Centre. But Tomorrow Square was

developed wholly by a local Shanghai company

owned by the government. The design brief empha-

sises that the building image should ‘present the

new period of economic development, face to the

future, instead of backward looking’.12 The

Portman firm translated the government’s expec-

tation as a ‘transformation of architectural style in

the 21st century’.13 The building presents the

‘future’ with aluminium and glass materials, and

the tall tower of (non-historical) ‘geometric

rotation’. The tower’s sharp open top points to the

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Figure 11. The People’s

Square and Tomorrow

Square.

sky and contains a small ball, which is lit by a flashing

light hidden in the roof. It is a metaphor of an Orien-

tal Pearl and also a dramatic landmark of Shanghai,

the ‘Pearl of the Orient’. The sharp, open-top form

of this tower appeared in the first-round scheme,

and was firmly supported by an influential municipal

leader. It attracted criticisms after it was completed,

as the expensive pointed form has little pragmatic

function.

A similar symbolic approach appears in the design

competition for the Jinmao Building, submitted by

Portman & Associates in 1995, the same year that

they initiated the scheme for Tomorrow Square.The

Jinmao Building is located in the financial district of

Lujiazui in Pudong, and is designated as ‘first in

Asia’ and ‘landmark’. Portman’s entry scheme uses

a square shape like a typical tower plan, but has

the corners subtracted gradually in the upper

floors. The design language is almost the same as

Tomorrow Square. However, an international jury

selected the ‘pagoda’ scheme better to represent

the ‘modern’ plus ‘nostalgia’ ideas, designed by

SOM from Chicago. The Global Financial Centre,

another landmark building next to the Jinmao in

Pudong, designed by KPF of theUSA, uses a ‘moon

gate’ image in its scheme (Fig. 13).

Tomorrow Square, the Jinmao Building, and the

Global Financial Centre were all prepared in 1993,

when the municipal government opened the way

to booming urban construction and hoped that

these structures would herald Shanghai’s new era

as an ‘international metropolis’. The design of all

three buildings was committed to American archi-

tects. The late comers from the US projected their

traditional oriental ideas onto the buildings — the

pagoda and the moon gate. They proposed to rede-

fine the cultural status of Shanghai. Their intentions

were realised through the support of the inter-

national jury. In contrast, the three jury members

for Tomorrow Square were all local. Two other

entries for Tomorrow Square were criticised as too

old, ‘too traditional’.14 Eventually, the three ‘Ameri-

can designs’ formed an interesting contradiction

and irony: the newly developed Pudong area

appeals to ‘Chinese tradition’, while in the Nanjing

Road, once the ‘Champs-Elysees’ of the ‘Oriental

Paris’, an abstract non-historical landmark stands.

This irony resulted from the expectations of different

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Importing American

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Charlie Qiuli Xue,

Yingchun Li

Figure 12. Tomorrow

Square, Shanghai, by

John Portman &

Associates, 2003: the

apex of the tower is a

landmark in the old

settlement on the west

bank of the Huangpu

River.

jury members: the western jury wanted to see

‘Chinese’, and local Chinese wanted to see ‘abstract

modern’.

In the end, all ‘modern’ attempts go back to their

original point of departure: as tourists step into the

sightseeing floor of the Jinmao Building, which over-

looks the Bund and the old Shanghai of the1930s; as

guests lounge in the 37th floor hotel lobby of Tomor-

row Square and stare out at a similar source of nos-

talgia, the view of the People’s Square (the old

racecourse) and the Nanjing Road (the old Park

Road in the British concession). These buildings are

naturally welcomed by international tourists and

new elites.

5. Conclusion

As mentioned above, the urban space of Shanghai

has been shaped to a considerable extent by Amer-

ican design firms. John Portman & Associates was no

doubt a pioneer in cultivating the modern Chinese

city, considering its early entry and great impact in

the Chinese market. During the development of

the Shanghai Centre, it was rare to find companies

to manage such joint ventures, and planning and

control were loose. When compiling the construc-

tion documents, it was even difficult to find compe-

tent people in Shanghai to fulfill the task.15

With rapid urban development, overseas design

practices poured into China and mushroomed in

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Figure 13. (a),

Tomorrow Square; (b),

the Portman scheme for

the Jinmao Building; (c),

the winning scheme of

the Jinmao Building by

SOM; (d), the Global

Financial Centre by KPF.

All these landmark

buildings in Shanghai

were designed by

American practices.

Shanghai. The work of Japanese architects is consist-

ently introverted and ‘rational’, so they made little

impact in the city.16 The European architects’

works are mainly in cultural and residential build-

ings, some of an experimental nature, but of a

smaller scale. It is in the West Nanjing Road area,

one of the five central business districts in Shanghai,

where Shanghai Centre and Tomorrow Square are

located, that most landmark buildings are designed

by American practices. For example, Plaza 66 by KPF,

Citic Plaza by Callison Architecture, Inc., and Jiubai

Urban Plaza by Jon Jerdes (Fig. 14). From 2003,

the historic Bund area was under stricter preser-

vation control, and high-rise buildings have, basi-

cally, been prohibited. Therefore, the Bund Centre

will be always prominent in the area. The developer

Sinar Mas Group is preparing a new sister ‘crown’

building at northern Bund, and an ‘American archi-

tect’ is designated again.17

This special passion for ‘American design’ might

be logically consistent with ‘Chinese modernity’,

as explained by Professor Leo Lee. According to

Lee, ‘Chinese modernity’ appeared in the 1920s.

The English word ‘modern’, in addition to its

primary meaning of ‘characteristic of the present

or recent times, as distinguished from the

remote past’, is directly adopted through its pro-

nunciation into the Chinese language as ‘mo

deng’, literally, new and fashionable.18 The

worship of the ‘modern’ happened after American

consumerist ‘pop culture’ landed in Shanghai.19

The transformation from the former British capital-

ist spirit (sometimes characterised as ‘Victorian

style’) in the late nineteenth century to American

culture resulted in numerous skyscrapers with

American Art Deco style in the 1930s: decoration,

special pattern, colour, lighting, texture, liveliness

and a somewhat naıve optimism. Most of these

buildings were not designed by American archi-

tects, but they share similar features with what

appeared in San Francisco, Los Angeles and

New York at the time.

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Importing American

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Charlie Qiuli Xue,

Yingchun Li

Figure 14. Panoramic

view of West Nanjing

Road, 2003: Tomorrow

Square is on the far

right; the tallest

building on the left-

hand side is Plaza 66,

designed by KPF.

The building of the Shanghai Centre, with its

‘American design’, strategically led to the urban

reconstruction of the area, which had stagnated

with the townscape of the 1940s. The Shanghai

Centre is pivotal to Portman’s ideas about revitalis-

ing the old city and providing ‘effective’ public

space. He himself was one of the developers, and

could fully display his role of ‘architect as develo-

per’. In the latter two buildings, governmental

expectations and control increased. The ‘royal

crown’ proposed for the Bund Centre was hard

for the designer to accept, and Portman’s influence

decreased as a result. Portman is mature in shaping

‘a place for being’ throughout his comprehensive

commercial projects. His skills and products

warmly embraced the rising commercial tide of

the Chinese coastal city of Shanghai. The buildings

discussed in this paper highlight three different

forces: the Shanghai Centre represents the force

of the architect, who dreamed of localising com-

mercial and public space; the Bund Centre rep-

resents the force of developer in a situation of

loose governmental control; and Tomorrow

Square best presents the choice and decision of

government.

As indicated previously, the influence of the West

is cardinal to the ‘collective memory’ of Shanghai

since it was first designed to serve as the foremost

Chinese colonial city for the Western powers. Port-

man’s designs, especially for the Shanghai Centre,

create a bridge between old and new by paying

homage to Shanghai’s architectural past while pro-

viding a contemporary focus for the success of

Shanghai and its people. In this way, they no

doubt strengthen ‘a place for being’ in the city.

The rapid reconstruction of urban space in Shang-

hai is being carried out against a background of

global consumerism, and global-local interaction.

After China joined the World Trade Organisation in

2001, the permeation of overseas design practices

is more obvious: from hotel, grand theatre, to shop-

ping arcade and residential building. When review-

ing the trend of foreign design in China, the work

of John Portman provides an amazingly significant

vision.

Acknowledgements

This paper is part of the outcomes supported by the

Division of Building Science and Technology, City

University of Hong Kong, DRG(CX) 01/08–09. The

authors heartily thank Mr. Walter N. Jackson, the

principal representative of the Shanghai Branch

and vice president of John Portman & Associates,

and Li Aiguo of the Urban Planning Management

Bureau of Jingan District, Shanghai, for their kind

interview; and Professors Zheng Shiling and Chang

Qing of Tongji University, for their generous

support of the project. The authors also owe their

gratitude to Li Xianjun of Portman & Associates

and Ling Ling of Time þ Architecture who both

helped to provide a lot of useful materials, and to

Luther Tsai for his excellent English editing.

Figure 2 (a) (b) (c) (e), Figures 9, 11, 12 plan and

section, 13 (a) (b), appear courtesy of John

Portman & Associates; Figures 2 (d) and 7 appear

courtesy of the owner of the Bund Centre;

Figure 3 is taken from Highrise Buildings of Shanghai

in the 1980s (Shanghai, Shanghai Press of Science

and Technology, 1993); Figure 10, photograph by

Tang Zhong; and Figure 14 made available by

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Jing’an District government, Shanghai. The authors

are especially grateful for the wonderful art works

made available to them by all the foregoing. The

authors are grateful for the constructive comments

from two anonymous referees.

Notes and references1. On the importation of foreign architecture to China,

see Charlie Q. L. Xue, Building a Revolution: Chinese

architecture since 1980 (Hong Kong, Hong Kong Uni-

versity Press, 2006) and Jeffery W. Cody, Exporting

American Architecture: 1870–2000 (London, Routle-

dge, 2003).

2. Leo O. Lee, Shanghai Modern – the flowering of a new

urban culture in China: 1930–1945 (Cambridge,

Mass., Harvard University Press, 1999).

3. Charlie Q. L. Xue, The Global Impact: overseas archi-

tectural design in China (Shanghai, Tongji University

Press, 2006) and Charlie Q. L. Xue, World Architecture

in China, Importation and Adaptation 1978–2008

(Hong Kong, Joint Publication Ltd., 2008).

4. Charlie Q. L. Xue and Peng Nu, ‘An alternative moder-

nity and metropolitan fantasy, an analysis of space of

architecture by Japanese architects since 1980’, Time þ

Architecture, No.6 (2006), pp. 124–9. On the tradition

of Art Deco in Shanghai, see Xu Yihong, Art Deco: The

relationship of Chinese and western modern architec-

ture (Southeast China University Press, 2006).

5. For the career of John Portman, see Paolo Riani, Paul

Goldberger and John Portman, John Portman, l’Arcae-

ditionI (1990); John Portman and Jonathan Barnett,

The architect as developer (New York, McGraw-Hill,

1976); and John Portman and Associates: selected

and current works, ed., Steve Womersley (Mulgrave,

Vic, Images Publishing, 2002).

6. Interview with Walter N. Jackson, August 27th, 2006.

And also from The Document Office of the Communist

Party of China, Chronology of Deng Xiaoping (Docu-

ment Press of the Communist Party of China, 2004).

7. Charlie Q. L. Xue, ‘The ten celebrities in Hong Kong and

Shanghai’, World Architecture, No.9 (Beijing,2000),

pp. 77–80.

8. Saskia Sassen, Cities in a World Economy (Thousand

Oaks, California, Pine Forge Press, 1994).

9. In the design of the Bund Centre, big differences

occurred between the designer and client. In our inter-

view with Mr. Walter N. Jackson, he did not even

acknowledge that the Bund Centre was designed by

John Portman & Associates.

10. ‘Connecting with the international track’ is a slogan

adopted in the new millennium. It reflects the Chinese

government’s determination to join the global village.

Working methods and urban architecture are expected

to refer to ‘advanced’ Western models.

11. Leo O. Lee, Shanghai Modern — the flowering of a

new urban culture in China: 1930–1945, op. cit.,

pp. 53–4.

12. John Portman & Associates, Tomorrow Square, Time þ

Architecture, No.3 (2002), pp. 54–7.

13. Ibid., remarks by Jack Portman.

14. The selection process for Tomorrow Square was

revealed by one of the jury members to the authors:

e-mail of January, 2007.

15. Interview with Walter N. Jackson, op. cit.

16. Charlie Q. L. Xue and Peng Nu, ‘An alternative moder-

nity and metropolitan fantasy, an analysis of space of

architecture by Japanese architects since 1980’, op.

cit., pp. 124–9.

17. Professor Zheng Shiling, speaking at the seminar

on ‘The Global Impact — overseas architectural

design in China’, Tongji University, December

25th, 2006.

18. This principal meaning of ‘modern’ is taken from the

online Oxford English Dictionary, http://dictionary.

oed.com/cgi/entry/00313097?single¼1&query_type¼

332

Importing American

architecture to China

Charlie Qiuli Xue,

Yingchun Li

word&queryword¼modern&first¼1&max_to_show¼10.

The Chinese interpretation is from the Ci hai (Sea of

Glossary), Shanghai ci shu chu ban she (Shanghai Press

of Dictionary, 2000).

19. According to research into early Shanghai, imported

buildings first appeared in simple British colonial

style: for example, the verandah form in the late nine-

teenth century. The more majestic American Art Deco

buildings replaced the old style in the 1930s. See

Chang Qing, ed., Origin of a Metropolis — a study

on the Bund Section of Nanjing Road in Shanghai

(Shanghai, Tongji University Press, 2005); Lynn Pan,

Shanghai Style (Hong Kong, Joint Publication Ltd.,

2008); and Leo O. Lee, Shanghai Modern, op. cit.

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