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Free walks · Former French Concession

Wukang Road and the western French Concession

Six stops under the plane trees of the former French Concession: Art Deco flats, Hudec's Wukang Mansion, and the homes of Soong Ching-ling and Ba Jin.

Distance

2.8 km

Duration

76 min

Stops

6

Start → End

Hengshan Picardie Hotel (Hengshan Road (Line 1))→Dingxiang Garden (Shanghai Library (Line 10))

We drafted this route from the map and have not yet walked it end to end. Distance and time are estimates and allow for stopping at each place, not for going inside.

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Download GPXOpens in any map or fitness app. It holds the route and the numbered stops.

Stops

  1. 1

    Hengshan Picardie Hotel

    衡山宾馆Héngshān Bīnguǎn

    Start on Hengshan Road at a fifteen-storey Art Deco block completed in 1934 as the Picardie Apartments (the heritage register says 1935), built by the French-run International Savings Society. Its 87 flats were let within six months, mostly to wealthy foreigners, and it was the tallest building in western Shanghai until the 1980s. Look at the stepped outline, with the centre rising above the wings, on a dark stone base. In 1955 the city turned it into a guesthouse for Soviet experts, its first hotel for foreign guests after 1949.

  2. 2

    Blackstone Apartments

    黑石公寓Hēishí Gōngyù

    Walk up to Fuxing Middle Road, which was Route Lafayette in the French Concession. This apartment house was finished in 1924 for James Harry Blackstone, an American Methodist missionary who meant it to be the most luxurious apartment hotel in Shanghai; a 1925 advertisement called it the best apartment house in China. The Chinese name, 黑石 ('black stone'), is usually explained by the black stone used in its walls, though it may also translate Blackstone's own name. Look at the porch on paired columns and the curved balconies stepping back above it. Since 2020 the ground floor has been a public bookshop-café, the café on the site of the old swimming pool.

  3. 3

    Wukang Mansion

    武康大楼Wǔkāng Dàlóu

    At the six-way junction where Huaihai Middle Road meets Wukang Road stands László Hudec's Normandie Apartments of 1924, renamed Wukang Mansion in 1953. The plot is a triangle, so the building narrows to a point; see it from the west side of the junction, where the city gazetteer compares it to a warship with its bow raised. The ground floor is an arcade because the pavement was too narrow. After 1949 the film actors Zhao Dan and Sun Daolin lived here. It is still homes, so look from the street.

  4. 4

    Soong Ching-ling's Former Residence

    上海宋庆龄故居Shànghǎi Sòng Qìnglíng Gùjū

    Across Huaihai Middle Road, the white house at No. 1843 was built in 1920 and was home to Soong Ching-ling, widow of Sun Yat-sen, from the late 1940s; sources give 1948 or 1949 for her move. It is shaped to suggest a ship: the chimney looks like a deck ventilator, and there are anchors and sailing boats on the windows and blinds. More than thirty camphor trees, a century old, ring the lawn. The house has been a museum since 1988; opening times and tickets are on the place page.

  5. 5

    Ba Jin's Former Residence

    巴金故居Bā Jīn Gùjū

    Walk north up Wukang Road to No. 113. It was built in 1923 and was rented by a French expatriate before 1949. The writer Ba Jin moved in with his family in September 1955 and lived and wrote here until his death in 2005; the essay collection Suixianglu (随想录) was written in this house. Look for the pebble-finished walls, the dark green wooden windows and the low double-pitched roofs. It opened as a house museum on 1 December 2011, with Ba Jin's furniture, belongings and gifts of calligraphy and painting.

  6. 6

    Dingxiang Garden

    丁香花园Dīngxiāng Huāyuán

    At the north end of Wukang Road, turn onto Huashan Road for No. 849, a garden villa that was the home of Li Jingmai, a son of the Qing statesman Li Hongzhang, who lived here until his death in 1940. A popular story says Li Hongzhang built the garden for a concubine named Dingxiang; the sources we use reject it, and one says he never lived here. The grounds cover about two hectares, with a glazed-tile dragon wall said to be over 100 m long. We have not confirmed whether visitors may enter the grounds; one building is a restaurant.

Practical tips

What this walk is. A slow walk under the plane trees of the western French Concession, mostly on quiet residential streets. Most of the houses along the way are still homes or offices, seen from the pavement; only Soong Ching-ling’s residence and Ba Jin’s house are open as museums. Check their place pages for opening days before you plan around them.

About Wukang Road. Between Wukang Mansion and Huashan Road you walk the length of Wukang Road, about 1.2 km. It was first called Route Ferguson, after John C. Ferguson, who paid for it from his own salary from 1897 so that staff and students could reach his school; it took its present name in 1943. It is one of the 64 roads in central Shanghai that may never be widened. On the way, look for the residence plaques unveiled in 2011, No. 393, Huang Xing’s house of 1912–16 and now a tourist information centre, and the 1932 Spanish-style villa at No. 1, Lane 40, where the former premier Tang Shaoyi lived.

When to go. Weekday mornings are quietest. Wukang Mansion draws photographers all day, and the corner outside it is busy at weekends. Since a 2013 pilot, the district has left fallen plane leaves unswept on Wukang Road.

Be considerate. People live in Wukang Mansion and along Wukang Road. Photograph from the pavement and do not walk into lanes or courtyards unless they are clearly open to visitors.

Read more. The French Concession visitor’s guide covers the wider area; The 64 roads that will not be widened explains why streets like this one look the way they do, and How the French Concession was run covers who governed it. For the building style of the Picardie, see Shanghai Art Deco.