ABSTRACT
In the twenty-first century, few cities on earth strive for modernity like Shanghai and no one can dispute its national or cultural context. Shanghai was an exemplar of the treaty port's ambiguous qualities, a 'concrete example of the problem of China', outgrowing the regional context in which it was formed and becoming a proto free-city of genuine international import. Sanghai's status as a free port with no restriction on population movement and assorted political and economic administrations shaped the form and layout of the city's physical composition. By the 1930s, Shanghai had more Chinese architects, professional practices, trade journals and professional societies than any other city in China and than the rest of China put together–excluding Manchuria, of course. The potency of Shanghai's tall buildings lay in their inherent modernist iconography, derived from and symbolic of the new technological age. Decadence set Shanghai apart from China's other cities, where the 'lust for pleasure' became a 'hallmark of modernity'.
