Appetite for Destruction

Arc

hitectural tradition, master builder I.M. Pei once said, is a living force that animates the present. For the Shanghai relatives of the man who created the Louvre's pyramids and Hong Kong's sleek Bank of China building, that tradition is rooted at 25 Huangpi South Road, where five generations of the Pei family have made their home since 1911. During his student years in that rollicking city, the budding architect visited the graceful three-story mansion often and drew inspiration from its French colonial touches and lush gardens. "This house holds my family's soul," says Pei's cousin Bei Nianzheng, who was born in the house in 1956 and still lives there. "But now the government says they will tear it down because of urban development."

Or maybe not. The city government has served the Peis two letters. One, dated last spring, promised the house will not be destroyed, because it was designated a historic monument in 1999. The other, which arrived in late January, gave the family one month to find a new home. "I don't know which document to believe," said Bei, as the Feb. 21 deadline to move out passed without a peep from city officials. "So we didn't do anything. Now we're just waiting for the government to tell us what it's going to do."

Wrecking crews nationwide aren't so patient. With new business districts proliferating throughout China, millions of citizens are being evicted from their homes. Nowhere are the bulldozers more bullish than in Shanghai. To date, an area roughly the size of Venice has been razed. Never mind that the rubble includes half a dozen historic monuments supposedly protected by municipal or national fiat. "We can list a building as a national treasure," says Song Xinchao, a deputy director at the State Administration of Cultural Heritage. "But we have no power to enforce punishment if someone tears it down."

The most brazen violation occurred last year in Dinghai, the site of the first Opium War, where town officials flattened nationally protected city walls and houses to make way for profit-making office blocks. Local citizens had tried to secure a judicial order to halt demolition. But under pressure from the city government, the court allowed the wrecking balls to continue swinging. "Today, everyone's so concerned with making money that we think it's fine to tear down historic buildings for a quick payout," says Liu Bingkun, a lecturer at the China State Academy of Fine Arts. "But if we lose our history, what are we left with?"

Much of Shanghai's so-called urban renewal stems from similarly short-sighted greed. In the mid-'90s, China's largest metropolis went on a building blitz. Across the muddy Huangpu river, a futuristic realm called Pudong materialized, filled with hubris and towering skyscrapers. Shanghai's suburbs expanded into the countryside, with pink-tiled apartment blocks promising a leisured lifestyle to the city's middle class. But in the late '90s, Shanghai's building boom went bust. With occupancy rates plummeting to a dismal 35% in some areas, real-estate developers panicked. So did the city government, which had counted on a buoyant real-estate sector. Desperate, city planners offered a raft of incentives for local companies and foreign banks to relocate to Pudong. Then, in Shanghai proper, they began tearing down old row houses in one of the city's few remaining historic neighborhoods to make way for a giant 230,000 sq m park. Many of the dislocated families are being forced to move 90 minutes away from town into the glut of new suburban housing. Certainly, Shanghai needs green space, but couldn't a less historic district have been leveled?

The Pei family house sits where a manmade canal will meander through a grove of trees in a few months' time. Once, behind the mansion was an even more elaborate garden. But at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, the Peis were forced to move into the servants' quarters and donate the main house and grounds for a new middle school. Still, the Peis—many of whom had dispersed overseas—managed to keep the house's deed in their name. In 1979, Bei and her husband quietly moved back into the mansion. Over the years, they have slowly restored the house, peeling off the concrete and paint that Red Guards had poured over the woodwork and colorfully tiled floors.

Even today, some cadres remain unconvinced by the mansion's art-deco touches. "I'm not sure the building has enough historical value to keep it from being demolished," sniffs He Bing, a park project manager. A blueprint of what Shanghai's new urban heart will look like in five months is taped above his head. On it, the Pei house is gone. The only building that emerges unscathed is a nondescript gray affair that once housed the office of a Communist Party magazine. "Now, that building has real history," says He. The Pei home may house a family's soul, but it holds the wrong kind of history.