Inside the Home

Inside the Home

For every Shanghainese, "Inside the Home" is a term that evokes a genuinely warm feeling. Over 70% of Shanghainese were born and grew up in Shikumen houses. Nowadays, with the disappearance of Shikumen buildings, residents of modern apartments no longer have to queue up for shared kitchens and bathrooms as they did in the past; nor can they stand on their balconies chatting with neighbors while hanging laundry.

As for the women described in the writings of Eileen Chang and Su Qing—those who wore form-fitting cheongsams and American brand 0, lowering baskets from their windows to buy imported cosmetics—those images have long faded into old dreams, visible only in nostalgic films.

The entire exhibition hall covers a land area of 367.2 square meters, with a building area of 513.9 square meters. It is constructed based on the layout of a single-family unit from the 1920s, featuring seven main display rooms: the living room, study, elderly person’s room, master bedroom, daughter’s room, son’s room, and kitchen. The narrative of a Shikumen family weaves through the entire exhibit.

It not only showcases Shanghai’s unique Shikumen architectural culture and recreates the living spaces and lifestyles of Shanghainese in those days, but also introduces the concept and redevelopment process of the Shanghai Xintiandi project.

All the displayed items in the exhibition rooms—from stoves and children’s textbooks to lipsticks and ashtrays—are authentic relics from the 1920s and 1930s Shikumen alleyways. Sitting at the dressing table in the master bedroom on the second floor, handling delicate face powder, rouge, and hairpins, while a gramophone plays cheerful jazz music nearby, all of this seems to bring to life a detail-oriented, lifestyle-conscious, modern middle-class woman of the 1930s.

From the Hollywood movie magazines and old-fashioned sewing machine in the daughter’s room, it’s not hard to guess that she was a fashionable and vibrant young woman. Compared to her mother, she clearly knew—and desired—more about the world.

Through multimedia displays, sound effects, and in-house projectors placed throughout the exhibit, you can hear the sounds of Shanghai’s middle-class Shikumen life in the 1930s. No matter which room you step into, the vivid settings almost transport you back in time, making you feel as if you are experiencing the life of the room’s original inhabitant. Wandering through these spaces, though limited in area, offers boundless imagination, allowing you to immerse yourself in the deep nostalgia of alleyway life.