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The location on this Walter Arrufat photo has kept us wondering for a long time. The wide road, the tram tracks in the middle, the light orientation, the young plane trees, the art deco building in the background - everything suggested former Avenue Joffre (now Huaihai Road) in its western part - but where exactly? We kept looking for the building ( Read more... )

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Berthet Residence
1823 Middle Huaihai Road // 淮海中路1823号 // 1779 Avenue Joffre

I haven't researched this thoroughly, but a quick glance at the Hong directories reveals that this villa (old address - 1779 Avenue Joffre) was the property of the Berthet family at least since the beginning of the 1930s. There were many Berthets in Shanghai from the ( Read more... )

1948 vs 2015:

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Lawn Cinema, just south of the French Club's tennis courts, used to have its gate on Avenue Joffre, at No. 900. It opened in June 1932 as an open-air outlet of the Capitol Theatres ( Read more... )

It is well-known that in the foregn settlements of Shanghai the Chinese population vastly exceeded the foreign population at all times. But if there was one residential block in the French Concession where the Westerners outnumbered the Chinese - where would it be?


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The English version is adapted from the weekly architecture series in Russian in Magazeta.

Ezra's Residence (Adeodata Hall)
1209 Middle Huaihai Road


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