Celebrated author’s harmonious rela
Changde Apartments, a striking Art Deco building, will always be associated with celebrated author Eileen Chang (1920-95).
Archives from Jing’an District Housing Management Bureau reveal the building was called the Eddington House when Chang lived there. And the days spent at Eddington House saw Chang at the zenith of her writing power.
Decades later, even on the other side of the globe, she kept writing about this part of her life.
“Eileen Chang first lived in this apartment building with her mother and aunt in 1939 but later went to study in Hong Kong. When she returned to Shanghai in 1942, she moved into Room 60 with her aunt, and became a freelance writer until September 1947. Here, Chang completed the most important several novels of her life,” the archive record shows.
The eight-story Eddington House building was erected in 1936 during the golden era (1920s-40s) of modern Shanghai apartment buildings. Listed among the second batch of historical buildings, the construction features vertical lines as the centerpiece, which is flanked by long, horizontal balconies as a contrast. In addition, the canopy to the entrance and the walls on two sides are also adorned by horizontal lines. The top two floors are set back and showcase a strong Art Deco feature.
The research of Tongji University professor Qian Zonghao revealed the city’s early residential buildings were mostly shikumen (stone-gate) houses, which were built after refugees from neighboring provinces flooded into the foreign settlements of Shanghai following the upheavals of the Taiping Rebellion in the 1850s.
The new-style three-story “lane apartments” emerged in the 1920s. Every flat in a lane apartment had an en suite, and was equipped with a kitchen, steel-framed windows and a wax wooden floor.
“As Shanghai’s land price continued to soar in the 1920s, taller apartment buildings were built with up to six and nine floors. Though every flat in the taller buildings was smaller than before, the living quality of flat dwellers improved due to modern design and facilities. Tall apartment buildings were in either Art Deco or modern style,” Qian says.
After researching dozens of the city’s modern apartment buildings, another Tongji Un Zuo Yan, discovered ers appeared to be m and behaved in a m tive way’ compared in local lane house
Most of the apar were medium-level executives, lawyer tors or artists, who foreign companies rience of studying residents were exp to Shanghai for wo two to three month
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