NEW VERSUS OLD

These old Western buildings, and only these buildings, will preserve for Shanghai the atmosphere, the elegance that the new buildings can never equal. Perhaps in future years the symbol of Shanghai may become that of the lofty suspension bridges that span the Huangpu River, linking old Shanghai with the new Pudong Development Zone on its east bank. At present, however, what represents Shanghai is the Bund and its magnificent old structures built during the heyday of the foreigners' presence in the city. The eye is drawn again and again to their magnificent mass, their stately beauty, stretching along the waterfront. Their architects and their tenants are long gone; in the 1950s they returned to their native countries, leaving behind them edifices in which they had hoped to lay the base for future empires - and which they occupied a scant two or three decades.

In my research I sought out their spirit: in their sketches and architectural plans, in their books and memoirs, and in the memories of still-surviving Shanghai-landers. I found many that told me, often in tears, of their life in this fabled city of foreign power and privilege. From Russian refugees, impoverished by flight from the terrors of Bolshevism, to the owners of the magnificent mansions. From small shopkeepers to the wealthiest entrepreneurs, these foreigners all tell us the same story, of a city that had become their new home and that they had grown to love. Tales of a way of life gone forever - be it of mere survival or of prosperity - in a city that pulsated with vitality and lured them to it like a moth to a flame.

Even today it lures them back, their letters and their voices filled with longing to return to the old Shanghai they once knew - but which exists no more. Only its architecture tells the tale of a once mighty foreign presence here. When that is gone - and it is going fast - their presence will have passed like a shadow across the moon.