Wukang Road, Shanghai

1 · POSITION

Wukang Road is a street of the former French Concession in Shanghai, 1.17 kilometres long and lined with 37 officially protected historic buildings. It was named one of China’s National Historic and Cultural Streets in 2011. It enters the register as a district: a street walked for its houses, its cafés and the mansion at its southern end, where hospitality is the neighbourhood rather than a single building. [1]

2 · ROUTE FERGUSON

The road was laid out in 1897 by John Calvin Ferguson, an American educator, who paid for it from his own salary so that colleagues and students could reach the school more easily. It was paved in 1907 and widened by the French Concession government, and carried his name as Route Ferguson until it was renamed Wukang Road in 1943. [1]

3 · WUKANG MANSION

At the southern end, where the road meets Huaihai Middle Road at an angle of only thirty degrees, stands Wukang Mansion — built in 1924 as the Normandie Apartments to a design by László Hudec, in reinforced concrete and a French Renaissance manner, over 1,580 square metres. It did not take its first Chinese tenant until 1942, and was renamed by the city in 1953. The neighbourhood’s café culture long drew artists, socialites and political figures. [1, 2]

4 · THE STREET AS A DESTINATION

Cafés and restaurants opening along the road have brought tourists in growing numbers, and crowds now jostle for position across the junction in front of the mansion. A tourist information centre at No. 393 offers self-guided walking tours, which is the clearest sign that the street is now entered as a destination rather than lived on as a road. [1, 2]

5 · ⚑ CANDOUR

⚑ Anfu Road, named beside Wukang Road in the owner’s list, is not described here: no source read covers it. Ferguson’s school is not named in the source read. The cafés are not named or assessed; the entry records that they changed the street, not which of them is worth the visit. [1–2]