Former industrial sites given imaginative new lease of life

A dancer performs at the 1933 Creative Park in Shanghai. The local government plans to build the cosmopolitan city into a creative hub servicing the industrial heartland of the Yangtze River Delta region. [Photo/Provided to China Daily]

Despite efforts to liven up its gray concrete structure with colorful lights and attractive signs, the old abattoir in downtown Shanghai, renamed 1933 in memory of a bygone age, remains an eerie place, with a chill draft blowing through the premises.

Improbable as it may seem, this carefully preserved building is the centerpiece of a design park that forms part of the Shanghai government's ambitious plan to establish the cosmopolitan city as a creative hub servicing the industrial heartland of the Yangtze River Delta region.

This plan, in turn, is part of an even more ambitious undertaking to enhance Shanghai's role in national economic restructuring to achieve sustainable growth in years to come.

At the 1933 Creative Park, several new buildings grouped around the old abattoir are home to some of the biggest names in industrial design and art studios, servicing clients in various industrial hotspots in the region, including Nanjing, Suzhou and Wenzhou.

Mondu Visual Communication Creative Direction & Consultancy Studio settled in 1933 at the end of 2008. Xin Han, one of the three founders, which specializes in industrial, space, and interior design along with visual media, said the company chose the venue to base its studio, as the construction style of the creative park matched company expectations.

"First of all, the three of us, who are also designers, feel very good working here. We will be inspired to come up with more ideas here. Secondly, customers will get to know the orientation of our studio if they come here. They will know our taste," Xin said.

The higher the floor at 1933 Shanghai, the higher the rent. Xin's firm is on the sixth floor, at the top of the building, and the rent is about 6 yuan ($1) per square meter, which he says is affordable.

"From only two designers at the very beginning, we now have 15. We are working with the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, which hasn't changed its interior design contractor for more than a decade. We will design a new mascot for it and give it a brand new look," he said.

Furniture brand KUSHI from the Netherlands arrived at 1933 Shanghai about four years ago. It also chose the creative park for its style.

Paying a monthly rent of about 100,000 yuan, the company has done relatively well over the past four years, according to Vivi Zhang, the sales manager.