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They were basically city blocks that functioned as gated communities, with guards manning the front entrance. The whole essence of old Shanghai was that life was lived horizontally — all the activity happened at street level...Commissioned mostly by Western developers, the first shikumen appeared in the 1870s...local contractors who built them drew upon the interior floor plans of traditional Chinese courtyard homes and local decorative motifs. — NYT
Taras Grescoe pens a paean to shikumen, alleyway complexes entered through a stone-framed kumen (gateway), which at one point housed approximately 80 percent of the population of Shanghai. While fewer authentic examples remain, the city has in recent years begun redeveloping, "fake vintage"... View full entry
