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50 Moganshan Road Art Centre
Chinese contemporary art has been the hottest thing in the art world for the last few years and there's no sign of the boom ending, with collectors paying record prices for the work of top artists. Traditionally Běijīng dominates the art scene in China. But Shanghai has its own thriving artistic community, centred on this complex of industrial buildings down dusty Moganshan Rd and edging up Suzhou Creek in the north of town.
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Art Scene China
Contemporary Chinese art is exhibited over two floors in this lovingly restored 1930s villa. Hidden away in a quiet alley off West Fuxing Rd, the white-painted house's French Concession interior is simple and uncluttered, with a pleasant garden and an absorbing range of contemporary Chinese art work.
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Aura Gallery
This old warehouse space houses changing exhibits by young contemporary Chinese artists and is worth a stop en route to or from the Jewish area. Check magazine listings to see what's on. While you're at it, check to see what's exhibiting at the 3rd-floor DDM Warehouse.
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Bibliotheca Zi-Ka-Wei
Established in 1847 by the local Jesuit mission, the imposing St Ignatius Catholic Library (Bibliotheca Zi-Ka-Wei) shelves 560,000 volumes in Greek, Latin and other languages. The reading room upstairs in the adjacent four-storey building (the one with the verandas) is a blissful oasis of quiet amidst the consumer frenzy of the surrounding area.
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Bund Museum
The modest museum at the Meteorological Signal Tower (外滩信号台; also called the Gutzlaff Signal Tower) only contains a small scattering of ground-floor historical photographs. Originally a wooden tower, this version was built in 1907 as a meteorological relay station set up by the tireless Shanghai Jesuits. The tower (外滩信号台; Wàitān Xìnhào Tái) was moved southeast by 22.4m in the mid 1990s.
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China Sex Culture Museum
A fascinating foray into the little-understood realm of Chinese sexuality and erotica. Among the mating tortoises, copulating beasts and graphic jade phalluses, search out the knife that raised eunuchs' voices to the correct register, the horrifying donkey saddle with the wooden penis (used to punish 'licentious' women), and the special coins once used as quid pro quo in China's brothels of yore.
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Duolun Road Cultural Street
This nicely restored, if a little twee, street of fine old houses, just off North Sichuan Rd, was once home to several of China's most famous writers (as well as several Kuomintang generals), when the road was known as Doulean Rd. Today it is lined with art supply stores, curio shops, galleries, teahouses and cafés, as well as statues of the writers Lu Xun and Guo Moruo.
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Huangpu Park
Shanghai's - indeed China's - very first public park was laid out in 1886 by a Scottish gardener shipped out to Shanghai especially for that purpose. Originally called the Public Gardens, the park today is famously deformed by its anachronistic Monument to the People's Heroes (人民英雄纪念塔; Rénmín Yīngxióng Jìniàntǎ), underneath which is the Bund History Museum (外滩历史纪念馆; Wàitān Lìshǐ Jìniànguǎn).
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Liu Haisu Art Gallery
This hulking gallery exhibits works of the eponymous painter, as well as often impressive visiting exhibitions, with the Chine Antiques store in the lobby. Check the expat magazines for exhibition details.
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Liuligongfang Museum
The iridescent glass creations of Liuligongfang have emerged as highly prized mantelpiece ornaments for the well-to-do Chinese middle classes. The museum air-con is set to super chill mode, but it's thankfully offset by the warming hues of some splendidly wrought pieces on view. The handy branch of Liuligongfang at Xīntiāndì across the way can help empty your wallet if you find yourself in gift-buying mode.
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Lu Xun Memorial Hall
An excellent museum, this modern hall charts the life and creative output of Lu Xun (China's most celebrated modernist writer) with photographs, first editions, waxworks and the author's vestments (including his fedora and lamb-skin lined coat) and personal effects. Detailed English captions throughout. The museum bookshop sells Lu Xun's stories in English, French and German.
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Martyrs Memorial
Next to the Longhua Temple, this rambling park marks the site of an old Kuomintang prison, where 800 communists, intellectuals and political agitators were executed between 1928 and 1937. You can take a modern underground tunnel to the original jailhouses and the small execution ground. Scattered throughout the manicured lawns are epic sculptures of workers and soldiers, depicted in true socialist-realism art style.
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Natural Wild Insect Kingdom
Aimed at kids, this collection of creepy-crawlies includes an opportunity to handle some of the hairy monsters. It's one that could be missed unless your kids have a special interest.
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Old Film Café
With the golden age of Shanghai cinema as its theme, this place makes for a pleasant pit stop if you're touring the Duolun Rd area. Movie buffs will enjoy the photos of the vintage Chinese movie stars and the screenings of classic films from the '30s. Spread over three floors, there's also a small outside area. There's a wide range of teas available and they serve alcohol too. Look for the statue of Charlie Chaplin out front.
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Room With a View Gallery
Art critic Wu Liang conceived of this trendy space atop a department store for showcasing contemporary artworks and the output of up-and-coming artists. An accessible and successful combination, the gallery doubles as an image-conscious loft-bar where the tried and trusted blend of alcohol and art gets the nod from Bohemians city-wide.
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Shanghai Art Museum
Venue of the Shanghai Biennale, this excellent museum is particularly worth a visit for its location within the former British racecourse club building next to Renmin Park. Refreshingly cool in summer, the interior galleries - arranged over three floors - are perfectly suited to appreciating art, with well-illuminated alcoves and a voluminous sense of space.
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Shanghai Arts & Crafts Museum
Repositioned as a museum, this arts and crafts institute displays traditional crafts such as embroidery, paper cutting, lacquer work, jade cutting and lantern making. Watch paper cutting and other traditional crafts being performed live by craftspeople and admire the wonderfully wrought exhibits, from jade, through ivory to inkstones and beyond.
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Shanghai Gallery Of Art
Shanghai's handiest (and perhaps trendiest) art gallery finds itself sandwiched between two floors at Three on the Bund, which introduces you to Shanghai's effortless marriage of contemporary art and haute couture . For glimpses of high-brow and conceptual Chinese art, sample this gallery's rarefied atmosphere and manifestly exclusive inclinations.
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Shanghai History Museum
Both kids and adults will enjoy this sophisticated and informative museum with a fun presentation on old Shanghai. The city's notorious transport domain is the first for examination, and you can size up an antique bus, an old wheelbarrow taxi and an ornate sedan chair. Upstairs, learn how the city prospered on the back of the cotton trade and junk transportation, when it was known as 'Little Sùzhōu'.
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Shanghai Museum
Rocked slightly from its jealously guarded throne by the 2006 unveiling of Běijīng's tip-top Capital Museum, the monarch of China's museum world remains one of Shanghai's highlight sensations. Expect to spend half, if not most of, a day here. A primer of Chinese civilisation recounted via 120,000 exhibits, the intelligently designed museum guides you through the pages of Chinese history.
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Shanghai Museum Of Contemporary Art (Moca Shanghai)
A recent opening that has grabbed the bull by the horns on steering the world contemporary art scene to Shanghai, this non-profit museum collection has an all-glass construction to maximise natural sunlight (when it cuts through the constant clouds), a tip-top location in Renmin Park and a fresh, invigorating approach to exhibiting contemporary international art works.
Read more about Shanghai Museum Of Contemporary Art (Moca Shanghai)
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Shanghai Museum of Folk Collectibles
Housed in the magnificent Sanshan Guildhall, built in 1909, this fascinating museum allows an exploration of Shanghai via the medium of collectibles, from cigarette lighters to ceramics and cruelly exquisite-looking miniature shoes for bound feet. Take time to enjoy the guildhall's contours and traditional layout.
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Shanghai Museum Of Natural History
Located in the former Cotton Exchange Building (built in 1923), the exhibits at this dusty and gloomy museum are based on the former collection of the British Royal Asiatic Society. The most intriguing exhibits are the Ming dynasty mummies excavated from Dapuqiao and Xietu Rds. A traipse through the museum turns up numerous original features, including its tiled floor, cornices, ironwork and the occasional glint of stained glass.
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Shanghai Museum of Public Security
It may sound turgid and dull, but this museum has some gems among the inevitable displays on traffic control and post-Liberation security milestones. The gold pistols of Sun Yatsen and 1930s gangster Huang Jinrong are worth hunting down amid the fine collection of Al Capone-style machine- and pen-guns, and look out for the collection of hand-painted business cards once dispensed by the city's top jìnǔ (prostitutes).
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Shanghai Science & Technology Museum
This impressive space-age building aims at providing a fun educational experience but ultimately disappoints. Kids will like the Light of Wisdom hall, with its hands-on science experiments, but in general non-Chinese speakers will find the lack of instructions and English text frustrating. Surprisingly there is nothing on Chinese science and technology (this is, after all, the land that brought us fireworks and the rudder).
