1933 Shanghai, also called Old Millfun, is a concrete building in Hongkou district that was completed in 1933 as the Shanghai municipal abattoir. It was designed with the help of a British engineering firm and built to a scale intended to be the largest of its kind in the Far East. Production ended in the early 2000s, and the building reopened in 2007 as a complex of shops, galleries, studios and restaurants.
Why architects care
The structure is a maze. A central cylindrical core is wrapped in a system of ramps, bridges, staircases and interlocking corridors at several levels, originally engineered so that animals and workers could move between floors without crossing paths. The result is a lattice of passageways with open shafts and light wells, all cast in raw concrete with small arched windows. It is late Art Deco in decoration and industrial in plan, and it is completely unlike anything else in Shanghai.
What is there now
The upper floors hold small design shops, workshops, artists' studios and offices, plus a handful of cafes and restaurants. Photography exhibitions, product launches and fashion shoots use the space regularly, and on weekends there is usually something happening at street level. The building is at its best for photography on a weekday when the passageways are empty.
Practical information
Entry to the building and its public areas is free. It is on Shajing Road in Hongkou, about ten minutes walk from Hailun Road station on Metro Line 10, and roughly a twenty-minute taxi ride from the Bund. Open daily, generally from late morning to evening; individual shops keep their own hours. Allow an hour, more if you like photographing architecture.
Worth combining with
1933 is close to the North Bund riverside and to the old Hongkou lanes, an area of Shanghai that has changed fast but still shows the city's early twentieth-century street fabric. A walk from the building to the riverside and along the promenade towards the Bund makes a good half day away from the main tourist routes.
