Wukang Road Neighborhood: A Guide to the Sites — Shanghai guide

Walking route: south to north, total length roughly 1,180 metres. Start from Jiaotong University Metro Station (Line 10 / Line 11), then proceed along Huaihai Middle Road — Wukang Road — Anfu Road.

1. Wukang Building

Address: 1850 Huaihai Middle Road | Free | Exterior viewing only

The Wukang Building is the defining landmark of Wukang Road and one of Shanghai's most iconic urban symbols. Built in 1924 and designed by Hungarian architect Ladislaus Hudec, it was originally known as the Normandie Apartments. The building rises eight stories in a triangular ship-like form; from a distance it seems to sail into the intersection where five roads converge. It was one of Shanghai's earliest arcaded apartment buildings, with a French Renaissance facade, an arcade of continuous arches at the ground level, and clean red-brick walls from the third to the seventh floor. Celebrated film artists including Zhao Dan and Zheng Junli once lived here. Following a renovation in 2019, a 500-square-metre plaza called the Yuandian ("Origin") Square was created in front of the building, and it is now the best spot from which to photograph the tower.

Highlights: The triangular ship-like form — best photographed from Yuandian Square; the arcade of arches at ground level; the contrast of the brick upper floors and white decorative string courses.

2. Soong Ching-ling Memorial Residence

Address: 1843 Huaihai Middle Road | Admission: 20 yuan for adults | Tuesday to Sunday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM

This was the Shanghai residence of Soong Ching-ling, Honorary President of the People's Republic of China — the home in which she lived longest in Shanghai (1949–1981) and her principal base for state activities. The residence covers roughly 4,830 square metres; the main building is a European-style pseudo-three-story structure with a red-tiled roof and white walls in a distinctive boat-like form. Inside, more than 500 artifacts authentically recreate the original furnishings of the sitting room, dining room, bedroom, and study. The garden is shaded by more than twenty camphor trees over a hundred years old, and descendants of the doves that Soong Ching-ling kept still make their home in the grounds. The residence was the setting in which many of the plans for the welfare of women and children in the new People's Republic of China were conceived, and it received numerous foreign heads of state who visited China.

Highlights: The standard portrait of Sun Yat-sen in the ground-floor sitting room, alongside a photograph taken during Mao Zedong's visit; the rattan-and-wood wedding furniture gifted by Soong Ching-ling's parents, in the bedroom; the garden of century-old camphor trees and the dovecote.

3. Former Residence of Huang Xing (Wukang Road Tourist Information Center)

Address: 393 Wukang Road | Free | Open daily

This building, first constructed in 1912, was the last Shanghai residence of Huang Xing, a pioneer of China's modern democratic revolution. Huang Xing lived here from 1914 to 1916, during which time Sun Yat-sen visited him on two separate occasions. Huang Xing died here in October 1916. The main building is neo-classical in style, and stands in interesting contrast with the Art Deco annex to the north. Today the compound has been repurposed as the Wukang Road Tourist Information Center (also known as the Hengfu Historic Architecture Art Center), offering free exhibitions featuring maps, historical photographs, and architectural models of the Hengfu Historic Cultural Area — the best starting point for understanding the history of Wukang Road.

Highlights: The free exhibition of historical architectural models and old photographs; the visual contrast between the neo-classical main building and the Art Deco annex; pick up a visitor map and get your bearings.

4. Ferguson Lane

Address: 376–378 Wukang Road | Free | Open all hours

Ferguson Lane is a signature stretch of Wukang Road that blends historic architecture with contemporary commercial life. The entrance is a narrow lane; once you pass through the gateway, the space opens up into a courtyard-style commercial compound converted from an old factory. Scattered through the courtyard are cafes, designer boutiques, galleries, and international restaurants. Ferguson Lane retains the spatial character of old Shanghai's lane neighborhoods while channeling a cosmopolitan lifestyle — an ideal midway stop to rest and absorb the layered atmosphere of old and new.

Highlights: The spatial contrast between the narrow entrance lane and the open courtyard beyond; the architectural details of the converted factory buildings; a wide choice of cafes and restaurants from around the world.

5. Cape Town Apartments

Address: 240 Wukang Road | Exterior viewing only | Open all hours

Built in 1940 and designed by the British firm Palmer and Turner, Cape Town Apartments is one of the most visually curious buildings on Wukang Road. The apartment block stands on a triangular plot of only 126.7 square metres. Its four-story modernist design solves the problem of the acute corner by whittling the building to a knife-blade edge — viewed from one side, the whole building appears to be nothing more than a single wall's thickness. It is a classic example of a Shanghai corner building in which the architect achieved both function and aesthetic elegance on an impossibly constrained site, demonstrating the ingenuity of 1940s Shanghai architecture at its limits.

Highlights: The razor-thin acute-angle profile of the building viewed from Wukang Road; the relationship between the clean modernist lines and the extreme site constraints.

6. Hunan Villa

Address: 262 Hunan Road | Exterior viewing only | Open all hours

Hunan Villa is a historic mansion tucked away in the depths of a well-walled compound on Hunan Road, built in the 1930s. The villa follows an English country style, its steeply pitched red-tiled roof and tall red-brick chimneys its most immediately recognizable features. The residence was home over the years to several important historical figures, including Deng Xiaoping and Chen Yi. During the later stages of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the writer Zheng Zhenduo also sheltered here, and he recorded his years of hiding from the Japanese occupiers in his prose piece "Notes from Hiding." The villa is not open to the public, but the quiet garden and English architectural profile can be glimpsed from outside the surrounding wall.

Highlights: The steeply pitched red-tiled roof and tall red-brick chimneys (English country style); the view of the garden and overall building silhouette from outside the wall.

7. Midan Apartments

Address: 115 Wukang Road | Exterior viewing only | Open all hours

Midan Apartments, built in 1931, is the most playful building on Wukang Road — considered a work of "biomorphic architecture." The five-story reinforced concrete building has a grey cement rough-cast exterior. Its most distinctive design feature is the entrance: two semicircular flanking staircases curve upward like an elephant's trunk toward the main door, while the balcony above recalls the animal's forehead. This kind of animalistic form applied to a modern building is extremely rare in Shanghai. The Midan Apartments served in its early years as the premises of a Soviet commercial representative office and remains a model of how a functional building can be given a whimsical character.

Highlights: The "elephant trunk" semicircular entrance staircases and the balcony that together create the "elephant face" facade; the fine-grained texture of the grey rough-cast exterior walls.

8. Former Residence of Ba Jin

Address: 113 Wukang Road | Free | Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 AM to 4:30 PM (currently under restoration)

Built in 1923, this three-story European-style garden villa is a pilgrimage site for countless readers. Ba Jin, one of the giants of modern Chinese literature, moved here in 1955 and lived in the house until his death in 2005, spending half a century within its walls. It was here that he completed his celebrated essay collection "Random Thoughts" — described as "a great book of truthful words" — as well as the novella "Reunion," later adapted into the acclaimed film "Heroic Sons and Daughters." The first and second floors are open to visitors, with displays of Ba Jin's manuscripts, his book collection, and personal possessions; the garden changes with the seasons, with cherry blossoms and magnolias in their time.

Highlights: Ba Jin's manuscripts and the extensive library in the ground-floor sitting room and study; trees that Ba Jin himself planted in the garden; check for updated opening notices during the restoration period.

9. Romeo Balcony

Address: 210 Wukang Road | Exterior viewing only | Open all hours

The "Romeo Balcony" is the most romantically charged photograph spot on Wukang Road. This Spanish-style garden villa, built in the 1930s, has a delicate semicircular balcony projecting from the second floor at street level, with slender ironwork railings forming a graceful counterpoint to the white walls and red-tiled roof of the building behind it. The balcony's form is so reminiscent of the iconic scene in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" that Shanghai residents and visitors have affectionately given it the name. The building itself is not open, but the balcony with its curtain of climbing ivy creates the most poetic street scene on Wukang Road.

Highlights: The semicircular ironwork balcony on the second floor, set against the white walls and red tiles of the Spanish-style building; the street scene composed of climbing ivy and the balcony.

10. Former Residence of Liu Jingji

Address: 99 Wukang Road | Exterior viewing only | Open all hours

Built in 1928, this red-and-white English country villa is half-hidden in the greenery of Wukang Road. Its most unusual identifying feature is a sawtooth-profile brick chimney — an exceptionally rare detail in Shanghai's historic architecture. Liu Jingji was a celebrated Shanghai patriotic industrialist. The interior blends Chinese and Western decorative elements. Worth noting: this villa was a filming location for director Ang Lee's film "Lust, Caution," where the classic scenes in which the characters Wang Jiazhi and Yi Xiansheng first meet were shot — lending the building an added layer of cinematic legend.

Highlights: The sawtooth-profile brick chimney (a signature English country detail); the building's exterior appearance as a filming location for "Lust, Caution."

11. Former Residence of Zhang Leping

Address: 3 Lane 288, Wuyuan Road | Free | Tuesday to Sunday, 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM

Zhang Leping is one of China's most beloved cartoonists, known as the "father of Sanmao" — the endlessly popular cartoon character whose name literally means "three hairs." This two-story building hidden deep in a Wuyuan Road lane was Zhang Leping's home from 1950 to 1992 and the birthplace of the entire Sanmao series. The residence preserves the original studio as it was in his lifetime, displaying original manuscripts and publications of "Sanmao the Vagabond" and "Sanmao Goes to War" and other classic works. A sculpture of Sanmao stands in the courtyard, with a lovably comic expression. The quiet courtyard deep in the old lane gives visitors a genuine feel for the texture of everyday life in old Shanghai's residential neighborhoods.

Highlights: The original manuscripts of "Sanmao the Vagabond" and other classics in the studio; the Sanmao sculpture in the courtyard; the atmosphere of daily life deep in a Shanghai lane.

The 11 sites above are listed in the official south-to-north sequence of the Wukang Road neighborhood tour. The total walk takes approximately 1.5 to 2.5 hours.