Xintiandi

Xintiandi means New Heaven and Earth in Chinese (Shui on Land). It is a car-free shopping area filled with restaurants, boutiques, cafes, and bars of an international standard that can please anyone. It is an urban tourist attraction inspired with the city’s history and cultural. It is located at the City Center of Shanghai, and only one block south of the prestigious Huai Hai Zhong Road and its metro station (Shui on Group). Xintiandi covers an area of 30,000 square meters (Shui on Group) or 98425.197 square feet.

Xintiandi is very well known as “yesterday meets tomorrow in Shanghai today”, because of its backdrop story. The area has been developed reclaiming 1920s-era Shikumen houses. Shikumen means stone gate (Sara Naumann). These houses were introduced in 1860s (Wikipedia-Shikumen) to shelter refugees from the Taiping Rebellion. Shikumen houses are interconnected row houses and are typically three stories high with a gates made of stones and houses build by red and gray bricks. The developers of Xintiandi has retained the antique walls, tiles and exterior of original Shikumen houses, while they have designed and decorated internal spaces in such a way that suites the up tempo lifestyle of the 21st century urbanites (Xintiandi Style). Because of that, Xintiandi is also known as a “window to the past and the future, to China and the world” (Xintiandi Style).

The project of developing Xintiandi began in 1997 and came to full realization in mid-2001 (Xintiandi Style). The principal investor of the project was Shui On Group. Today, not even 2 decades from when the idea was created, Xintiandi is now the new landmark of Shanghai. Its developers have done an amazing job to preserver the original walls and tiles to keep the historical beauty of the city by salvaging the Shikuman from decay. It also has received an international award named “2003 Award for Excellence” from the US-based Urban Land Institute (Xintiandi Style).

References:
Shui on Group, http://www.shuion.com/eng/sol/pptdev/xin.asp
Wikipedia-Xintiandi, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xintiandi
Shui on Land, http://www.shuionland.com/sol/tabid/146/Default.aspx
Sara Naumann, About.com Guide, http://gochina.about.com/od/whattoseeinshanghai/qt/Xintiandi.htm
Xintiandi Style, http://www.xintiandi.com/xintiandi/en/about_info.asp