CHINA: BULLDOZERS AND WORKERS DEMOLISH ANCIENT MANSION OCCUPIED FOR ALMOST A CENTURY BY THE PEI FAMILY
Record ID:
837299
CHINA: BULLDOZERS AND WORKERS DEMOLISH ANCIENT MANSION OCCUPIED FOR ALMOST A CENTURY BY THE PEI FAMILY
- Title: CHINA: BULLDOZERS AND WORKERS DEMOLISH ANCIENT MANSION OCCUPIED FOR ALMOST A CENTURY BY THE PEI FAMILY
- Date: 26th May 2001
- Summary: SCU BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPH OF BEI HOUSEHOLD AT DINNER TABLE; SCU BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPH OF BEI FENGMEI, GRANDMOTHER AND CHENG ZEQIAN, GRANDFATHER SOON AFTER THEY WERE MARRIED IN 1936 AT THE AGE OF EIGHTEEN (2 SHOTS)
- Embargoed: 10th June 2001 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: SHANGHAI, CHINA
- City:
- Country: China
- Topics: History,Politics
- Reuters ID: LVAACRZPGA3OJJ48B52M4RZ5ARZ9
- Aspect Ratio:
- Story Text: Bulldozers and workers with sledgehammers have moved in to demolish a Shanghai mansion occupied for nearly a century by members of the Pei family, despite appeals from world-famous architect and relation I.M. Pei for the building's preservation.
Another piece of historic Shanghai architecture goes under the bulldozer.
In the end, time ran out for the home that weathered the fall of an imperial dynasty, foreign occupation, civil war and rampaging Red Guards from the Cultural Revolution.
The hundred year survivor of wars and revolutions has fallen victim to the city's Blitzkrieg drive for beautification.
Shanghai is being spruced-up ahead of a meeting of Asia-Pacific leaders this year.
The three-storey building was scheduled for demolition to make way for one of many parks aimed at covering the blight left from decades of haphazard real-estate development.
City officials declined to comment as the wrecking began, and security guards at the demolition site prevented cameras from shooting.
Built at the turn of the 19th century, the house sat at the edge of an encroaching line of skyscrapers in downtown Shanghai.
At one time, the area was the wealthiest in Shanghai's French Concession, and was home to notorious gangsters during the years before the 1949 revolution.
All the homes fell victim to the wrecking ball early this year, except the Pei mansion, which resisted until the last moment.
The house was purchased in 1911 by a member of the Pei family clan known as the "King of Pigments", a successful paints businessman, and it subsequently housed five generations of Pei's.
It's last occupants included Bei Nianzheng (pronounced Bay Nien-jung), her husband and her eight year-old son.
(Note: "Bei" is the mainland Chinese transliteration for "Pei" -- they are both pronounced "Bay") Last March, Shanghai's Housing and Land Administration named the residence a modern historic landmark for its unique blend of Western and Eastern building style.
Bei and her husband thought the home would be spared, so they fixed the woodwork and scrubbed its brick exterior.
But then the city officials changed their mind and decided to raze the neighbourhood to make room for a greenbelt.
Since then, she has received numerous eviction notices, but decided to stay-on and fight the decision against stiff odds.
Under communist rule in China, homeowners possess rights to the building structure, but not the land it is built on, which belongs to the government.
If the authorities decide to flatten a neighbourhood, there are very few legal measures the residents can take to prevent the action.
Compensation is often made well below market value. In her uphill battle, Ms. Bei enlisted the help of her distant relative and world-renownd architect, I.M. Pei.
Pei, famous for designs of the Bank of China building in Hong Kong, the glass pyramid at the Louvre, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, had signed a letter to Shanghai Mayor Xu Kuangdi appealing for help in saving the house.
There were proposals to convert the structure into a museum to showcase modern Chinese architecture.
For Ms. Bei, her entire life had been tied to the house and she would have happily donated the building for public access.
"Every since I was born, I'd always lived in this house.
I've never left it, and for over 40 years, I've grown with it.
It's a part of me, so much so that when I close my eyes, I can see every little corner and every tiny detail in my mind," said Bei Nianzheng, who has developed heart problems since beginning her struggle with the city government.
Her son, Fu Jitang (pronounced Foo Jee-tang), plays in the same house she spent her youth in.
During the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, the Red Guards ejected the Bei family and wreaked havoc on the house. They smashed stained glass windows from France, tore out carved woodwork, and poured cement on balcony tiles.
Jitang climbs past the stairwell balustrades which were covered with plaster because it reeked of western decadence.
The intricate designs were painstakingly chiselled out after they were permitted to reoccupy the house 1979.
Today, Jitang wages a desperate house-to-house battle against the demolition crew who have moved to within 10 metres of the structure.
"They said they're going to wreck my house because it looks ugly. But I don't think so, I think my house is really pretty.
It's really fun because I can play in it. I don't want to move!" exclaimed Jitang.
Architects and the Bei's aren't the only ones who appreciate the mansion's aesthetic beauty and cultural value.
Mike Zargarov is a member of the Shanghai Historic Homes Society. He is one of the many concerned Shanghai residents to drop in on the Bei's to see if the house is still around.
"Every day, I walk along this road here and look at this house, and I've watched this entire neighbourhood go under the bulldozer and hoping against hope that this house would not go, and now I fear that the house is threatened. And I'm just hoping that this one last vestige of old Shanghai right here in the city centre is not going to go under the bulldozer,"
said Zargarov.
Dinnertime at the Bei mansion these days may not be as lively as it was before the 1949 communist take-over, but it's a chance for the different generations to get together.
Jitang helps set up the dinner table with his 83 year-old great-great aunt, Bei Fengmei (pronounced Bay Fongmay), who occupies the western wing of the mansion.
Together with her husband for 65 years, Cheng Zeqian (pronounced Chung Zechien), she enjoys the once-a-week dinner get-together with her extended family.
She has great emotional attachment to the family home and cannot imagine a life outside the mansion.
"When I heard that my house was going to get demolished, my heart stopped, I've lived here all my life," sighed Bei Fengmei.
Before liberation in 1949, over 30 Bei's along with nannies and servants lived in the grand mansion. But after the revolution, they were persecuted for having been an urban bourgeoisie in the old society.
Many of the clan members fled to Hong Kong, but Bei Fengmei and her husband, Cheng Zeqian who married in 1936 at the age of 18, stayed-on to see the house through all its vicissitudes.
But now the house is gone.
The mansion with over a hundred years of history will be replaced by a brand-new park, in which the ancestral spirits of the Bei family shall wander eternally.
Ms. Bei and her family have moved into a modern apartment across town. When contacted by phone as the wrecking began this week, she said sadly, "It's a real shame, a real shame.
But there was nothing at all we could do." - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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