Mazda2, Zoom-Zoom magazine
Shanghai Surprise
Shanghai isn’t a city that lets you settle in slowly. My feet didn’t touch the ground during the welcome act, a phenomenal levitating express train that blasts you 30km from the airport to the city centre at a hair-raising 430km/h. This illusionist is named the Maglev, because it’s swapped wheels for magnets to help propel it along. They certainly do the job – after all, the take-off speed of the average jumbo jet is only about 290 km/h, and there’s just one production road car, the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport, that can match this kind of motion.
Emerging in under eight minutes, then, into this mega-city of some 19 million people, I soon realised that fast reactions and agile handling were much more valuable here than any amount of straight-line speed. And I don’t just mean to help dodge the street hawkers with their fake Rolex watches, who appeared at my elbow with uncanny, Swiss-like precision whenever I stepped outside. No, it’s Shanghai’s blend of sheer traffic density and frequent driver unpredictability that makes a car like the Mazda2 come into its own.
The most spectacular spot to get to grips with the city’s geography is down on the Bund, Shanghai’s iconic strip of historic riverfront on the western bank of the mighty Huangpu. As darkness falls, the place fills with excited sightseers, but few of the thousands of cameras are focused on the heritage buildings. All the lenses are pointing east across the river towards the Bladerunner-esque district of Pudong, an exotic forest of neon-lit skyscrapers blinking and sparkling out curious messages of all kinds. My favourite was the shiny blue 101-storey World Financial Center, which sports a giant mouth-like aperture cut into the upper floors. It seems to be opening up for a feed like a hungry sea lion, slowly stretching its neck out as far as it will go.
It was also an apt reminder that it was dinner time. I struck out along the Bund past the imposing stone edifices that sit shoulder to shoulder like squat old businessmen, still managing to look dapper thanks to their sharply tailored 1920s and 30s attire. Most buildings here have been immaculately restored and now house luxury fashion boutiques, art showrooms and splendid restaurants and hotels.
At number 18, I whizzed up to the sixth floor to find Mr & Mrs Bund, an elegant brasserie under the wing of high-flying French-born chef Paul Pairet. Dressed in a jaunty designer flat-cap, he plays the role of edgy kitchen maverick with aplomb. “Mash-ups: not just for potatoes and DJs any more”, is how he refers to his classic French cuisine with a twist (he once added tinned sardines to a haute cuisine menu). He’s currently fine-tuning a new venture called Ultraviolet, a restaurant with only ten chairs, where guests will savour a 20-course avant-garde menu at a communal table. Paul and his team, meanwhile, will deliver a bespoke ‘sensory play’ featuring a high-tech system that controls lighting, music, scent, projections and even the flow of air.
Is Shanghai ready for such an experiment? “It’s a city that embraces new ideas quickly,” Paul explained. “And while we may be building the most expensive restaurant per capita in the world, if we charged prices that would actually cover our costs, very few people could afford to come. This will not be an elitist project.” Then he told me a story about the tiny street stall that served him an interesting egg dish; only when he looked closer did he realise that this was no traditional Chinese recipe, but the cook’s attempt to replicate the egg muffin sold in McDonald’s. “My point is that while Shanghai is driven by money, it’s also driven by curiosity. That’s what taking over from tradition among the younger generation.”
Do others in Shanghai share this creative optimism? Next morning, I wove the Mazda2 quickly through the rush hour traffic to catch up with Eike Stratmann who’s busy putting the city’s fast emerging art scene on the map – quite literally – with Shanghai Detour. This chic guide highlights every single art space in the city, from appointment-only private collections and tiny working studios to big commercial galleries. Born and bred in Berlin, Eike’s driven by a passion to introduce the arts scene here to a wider audience and is determined not to leave anyone out.
“Some places here aren’t allowed to erect a sign outside their building,” she explained, “so the map’s not just a piece of paper – it can become very powerful; if you’re not on it, you don’t exist. Such is the pace of change and scale of the city, I must bring out an updated edition every two months.”
Eike was keen to introduce me to one of her recent discoveries, nestled in a quiet alley in the bustling district of Jing’an. Managed by Taiwanese artist Nicole Teng, Plum Gallery sits in a cosy two-room apartment, where I perched on a quirky recycled chair with colourful old food tins for legs. Above me were shelves lined with wonky pottery vases, each showing a hand-painted figure representing members of Nicole’s family. It’s all very primitive and restrained, not the sort of hard-sell themes I was expecting in such a frenetic city. “My work is not about simply making a beautiful shape, it is organic,” the artist explained. But will anyone take notice? “If you do something raw and real in Shanghai, you’ll be heard.” As if on cue, there was a knock on the door and in trooped a Chinese TV crew.
Getting noticed is certainly not a problem for Shanghai native Maleonn. This award-winning artist is currently at the top of his game with his ‘fabulist’ digital photographic tableaux displayed in leading galleries from New York to Tokyo. When we met, he was busy packing up his studio for the Shanghai Biennale, moving it from a disused car factory to the city’s main art museum. It has been a sensational rise to stardom – the former advertising art director only became a full-time artist in 2004.
“Everyone thought I was crazy dropping my career,” Maleonn told me, stroking his cat, Shakespeare. “In the past, you needed good connections with curators and galleries to get noticed; I knew nobody, but then the Internet came along and I simply uploaded my works there.” In his view, Shanghai’s historic Western influences help to explain the city’s creativity: “It means people here are open to more things.”
Another major talent enjoying global recognition is fashion designer Han Feng. When not crafting her trademark theatrical couture for international socialites, she’s devising costumes for London’s Royal Opera House and Hollywood movies (most recently for the 2010 remake of The Karate Kid), or designing home interiors and lighting installations. She divides her time between a loft in New York and a gorgeous light-filled apartment set in Shanghai’s art deco Jin Jiang Hotel (where President Nixon stayed during his historic 1972 visit to China), and these regular intercontinental commutes give her a unique perspective on the local cultural scene: “Shanghai’s fashion market has really matured in the last few years – people here no longer desire the same luxury labels that everyone else is wearing, they’re starting to look for different things.” Opportunities for creative-minded people are growing rapidly, she says: “It’s like New York was in the 80s and 90s with lots of energy and many young people coming together. If you have an idea here, you can do it.”
Someone who is also bringing fresh ideas to Shanghai’s urban landscape is Canadian-born architect Sacha Silva, one of the founders of A00 Architecture. As the city has developed at breakneck speed, sustainability issues have rarely figured very high on many plans. So A00’s research into environmental sustainability and its application to architecture, interiors and furniture is fairly unique. Following their pioneering, waste-free eco principles they’ve already developed over 30 modern conversions of Shanghai's historic houses into highly personalised residences, plus there’s the URBN hotel (China's first carbon-neutral hotel) and a collection of recyclable furniture based on laminated cardboard and plywood. I met Sacha outside his firm’s latest project, a Vidal Sassoon hair studio set in a former metal foundry, where I asked him whether they’ve picked a tough city to promote their ‘green’ values.
“In Shanghai, if you can imagine something, you have the means of trying it out. The scale of the place means that there’s room for everyone – including us – and it’s not saturated; the model is still maturing.” From his infectious smile, he clearly remains excited by the possibilities: “It’s a very safe and cosmopolitan city, but I’m most impressed by its intensity. The pace here is seductive.”
Before I left, I wanted to get an insight into Shanghai’s next generation. When brands such as Nike or Adidas need to get to grips with the local youth market, they turn to multi-discipline creative agency Jellymon. From streetwear to watches, graphic design to shop window displays, their mixture of Western aesthetic and knowledge of the Chinese market keeps demand red hot. Pushing past trendy fixed-gear bikes and BMX’s, I squeezed into their trendy studio-meets-playroom to meet its British co-founder, Sam Jacobs. It was a Saturday afternoon but his young team were all hard at work at their desks. “The youth market is ever expanding; young people are becoming more independent and increasing their understanding of the world via the Internet,” he told me, “and it’s significant that so many things, from technology to fashion, is manufactured in China – influences are picked up directly via the back door of factories.”
Inventiveness and creativity is nothing new in China, of course – it’s just being allowed to resurface again. As Sam, puts it: “There remains a strong sense that this is a land of opportunity, and because there aren’t any preconceptions you have the freedom to experiment. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone asked us to design a car – anything is possible here.”
Later, heading back to the airport aboard the Maglev, I barely register the train hitting maximum velocity – Shanghai has already brought me bang up to speed.