Top 10 Museums in Xuhui, Shanghai Region

Through the master planning scale models and a series of high-tech facilities such as the electro-optical systems, visitors are provided with a full view of the design concept and development vision of the Binjiang Area.

Tou-Se-We, literally meaning in Chinese “earth piled hills bay,” thus named because of its location at the southern end of Xujiahui connecting the bay of Zhaojiabang Creek where piles of earth formed hills as a result of river-way dredging. The original Tou-Se-We Orphanage was built in 1864 by the Jesuits in Shanghai, and was closed in 1960, lasting nearly a century.

Museum displays traditional crafts of ivory, jade and wood carvings, textiles, painted snuff bottles and a variety of folk crafts. There are some studios where you can watch artisans at work, as well as a gift shop of high-quality goods (and prices).

A private art gallery founded by the Chinese art collector Liu Yiqian and his wife, Wang Wei, the Long Museum (West Bund) is currently one of the most influential of its kind in China. Located at the former site of Beipiao Wharf, the museum features its main building shaped in a “coal funnel” highlighting its architectural characteristics of the industrial civilization legacy, forming a remarkably artistic public space of contemporary urban culture and arts.

Known as the “Hollywood in Shanghai,” it was where the renowned Chinese movie studios, including Lianhua, Diantong, Xinhua, Kunlun, Wenhua, Haiyan, and Tianma, were successively born from the 1930s. On November 16, 1949, the Shanghai Film Studio was established here, which would become one of the three largest film production centres in China. Shanghai Film Museum was opened to the public in June, 2013 on the former site of the Shanghai Film Studio. Covering a total exhibition area of 15,000 m2, the museum is a major showcase of China’s film production that features integrated functions of display and interactive visiting experience, serving the needs of archival collection, academic research and public education.

The former residence of Huang Xing, a Chinese bourgeois democratic revolutionary and one of the major organizers of the Huanghuagang Uprising in Guangzhou in 1910, now serves as the Wukang Road Tourist Information Center and the Xuhui Old House Art Center where tourists are allowed to walk inside to view the flowing lines of architecture and the exquisite relief sculptures in the old Western-style house while looking back on historical events.

Founded by the internationally renowned photography artist Liu Heung Shing, the Center aims to become the first venue in Shanghai that focuses solely on photography and incorporates the functions of an art museum and an experimental art gallery. It is housed in a contemporary building boldly designed by the American architects Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee, which was a stunning masterpiece on display at the “Biennale of West Bund Architecture and Contemporary Art.”