Shikumen Scenic Area

Shikumen Scenic Area

The Shikumen Scenic Area is the most distinctive residential housing in Shanghai. The old alleys of Shanghai are generally built in the Shikumen architectural style. It originated during the Taiping Rebellion period, when warfare forced wealthy merchants, landlords, and officials from the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions to flee en masse into the concessions seeking refuge. Foreign real estate developers took the opportunity to construct a large number of residences. In the 1920s and 1930s, enclosed compounds were still the main feature of Shanghai residences, but intricate carvings gave way to simplicity—the multi-courtyard layout was replaced by single-courtyard designs, and the Sino-Western hybrid Shikumen residences emerged. These buildings heavily incorporated elements of southern Chinese vernacular architecture, using stone for the door frames and thick solid wood painted black for the doors, hence the name "Shikumen" (Stone Warehouse Gate).

Shikumen is the most representative residential architecture in Shanghai and is often regarded as one of the symbols of the city’s modern urban civilization.

Early 1870s

The early Shikumen style emerged in the early 1870s. It evolved from the traditional housing form of southern China, usually consisting of three or five bays, maintaining the symmetrical layout along a central axis typical of traditional Chinese architecture. In old-style Shikumen residences, stepping through the entrance leads into a long, narrow front courtyard, flanked by side rooms on both sides, and facing a guest hall with floor-length windows. The guest hall is about 4 meters wide and 6 meters deep, serving as a space for receiving guests and hosting banquets. On either side of the guest hall are secondary rooms, with a wooden staircase leading upstairs at the back. Further back is a smaller rear courtyard, only half the depth of the front courtyard, featuring a single well. Behind the rear courtyard lies a single-story sloped auxiliary building, typically used as a kitchen, storage room, or utility space. The entire residence has entrances at both the front and back. The front façade is composed of the courtyard wall and the gabled walls of the side rooms, with the central “Shikumen” gate made of stone frames and paired with thick black-painted wooden doors. The rear wall is roughly the same height as the front, creating an almost enclosed exterior. Thus, although located in a bustling area, the Shikumen offers a sense of seclusion akin to a high-walled compound, making it highly popular among Chinese gentry, merchants, and wealthy families who settled in the concessions at the time.

After the 1910s

Old-style Shikumen were gradually replaced by new-style Shikumen. Most new-style Shikumen had either one or two bays. Double-bay Shikumen retained only one set of front and rear side rooms, while single-bay ones eliminated side rooms altogether. The most significant internal structural change in new-style Shikumen was replacing the sloped roof of the auxiliary building with a flat roof, atop which a small bedroom, known as a "tingzijian" (attic room), was built. The tingzijian’s roof used reinforced concrete slabs, enclosed by railing walls that served as a drying terrace. To reduce land use and conserve construction materials, new-style Shikumen also reduced the depth of living spaces and lowered both the height of floors and surrounding walls.

Compared to old-style Shikumen, new-style Shikumen also differed in appearance. The exteriors of new-style Shikumen often used exposed gray or red bricks, or a mix of both, with lime mortar joints—unlike the white lime plastering of old-style Shikumen. The traditional horse-head or Guanyin-hood-style gables commonly seen in old-style Shikumen were also abandoned. Another key difference was the replacement of stone door frames with exposed brickwork, while door lintel decorations became more elaborate. Early Shikumen lintels often imitated the ceremonial gates of traditional southern Chinese architecture, featuring traditional brick carvings with green-tiled, pressure-top designs. In contrast, new-style Shikumen, influenced by Western architectural styles, commonly used decorative motifs such as triangles, semicircles, arcs, or rectangles, resembling the pediments above Western windows and doors. These decorative elements came in diverse forms and styles, becoming the most distinctive part of Shikumen architecture. Some new-style Shikumen also featured Western classical pilaster designs on either side of the door frame as decoration. In short, the architectural style of new-style Shikumen became even more Westernized.

Mid-1930s

With the rise of new-style lanes and garden lanes, the prominence of Shikumen waned, and they gradually became dwellings for the lower class of urban residents. But no one could have predicted that today, Shikumen would make a spectacular comeback. Xintiandi, where Shikumen have been “restored to look old,” has become the epitome of Shanghai’s trendiest scene. Yet the Shikumen there have long been gutted, leaving behind nothing but hollow shells—false facades for people to reminisce and pay tribute to.