Creating a "Shanghai Sample" Unit for Cultural Heritage Protection, Inheritance, and Innovative Development | Cultural Relics Protection | Shanghai

June 10th is Cultural and Natural Heritage Day. The Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism has launched a series of promotional and exhibition activities around the theme of "discovering the 'most Shanghai' cultural heritage and experiencing 'extraordinary' intangible cultural heritage". On the afternoon of June 9th, one of the main events of "Cultural and Natural Heritage Day", the "Inheritance, Revitalization, and Sharing" Expert Sharing Conference on the Protection and Utilization of Architectural Heritage, was held at Yangpu Binjiang Minghua Sugar Factory. Four experts, Tang Yuen, Zhao Chen, Chen Libin, and Zhang Ming, focused on the protection and revitalization of various types of architectural heritage in Shanghai, using case studies to explain the concepts and experiences of cultural heritage protection and inheritance in the process of urban renewal in Shanghai.

Shanghai is a national historical and cultural city, containing rich historical and cultural resources. Among them, the heaviest is the archaeological site. From the Majiabang culture over 6000 years ago, to the Songze culture and Liangzhu culture, to the Guangfulin culture 4000 years ago, the Maqiao culture of the Xia and Shang dynasties, and then to the Qinglong town site of the Tang and Song dynasties and the Zhidanyuan water gate site of the Yuan dynasty, 45 ancient sites have clarified the development of urban civilization. Shanghai is a gathering place for buildings with different styles and functions, with a large number of representative modern and contemporary buildings covering various styles from different periods in the history of world architecture. It ranks first in the country in terms of quantity, quality, and variety. Shanghai is the birthplace of the CPC and the birthplace of the labor movement. There are 612 red landmarks and more than 30 sites of the former site of the CPC Central Committee's early offices in Shanghai. A large number of precious revolutionary relics and red resources have become "living textbooks" for inheriting and carrying forward the great spirit of Party building.

According to statistics, there are a total of 3467 immovable cultural relics in Shanghai, including 40 national key cultural relics protection units and 227 cultural relics protection units in Shanghai, an increase of 110% and 41% respectively in the past decade. Shanghai has taken the lead in completing the delineation and announcement of the protection scope and construction control zone for all 40 national and 227 provincial guarantees nationwide, laying a solid foundation for implementing "protection in development, development in protection". Shanghai has completed the "one building, one volume" protection guidelines for all cultural relics and buildings at or above the municipal level. In recent years, Shanghai has completed a number of important historical building renovation, protection, and revitalization projects. The Yangpu Riverside "Industrial Rust Belt" has transformed into a "Life Show Belt". The Wukang Building has been renovated three times in three years, and after 70 years, it will bloom again. The century old Zhang Yuanhuan has returned, and every building with stories has been repaired, transforming into a new cultural landscape of the city and a leisure destination for the people.

In order to effectively play the role of revolutionary cultural relics and red resources in shaping the soul and educating people, Shanghai has advanced the construction, repair, and renovation of important venues and old sites represented by "one museum and five sites" to a high standard, transforming a large number of immovable revolutionary cultural relics originally used for residential or office purposes into red venues open to the public. On March 11 and June 30, 2021, the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism announced the Shanghai Revolutionary Cultural Relics List in two batches, with a total of 250 immovable revolutionary cultural relics and 3415 movable revolutionary cultural relics per set, achieving full coverage of immovable revolutionary cultural relics in 16 districts and 4 levels, as well as the collection of movable revolutionary cultural relics at levels 1, 2, and 3.

In 2018, Shanghai adhered to the principle of shaping tourism through culture and highlighting culture through tourism, and pioneered the new method of revitalizing and utilizing historical buildings through "building readability" nationwide. Over the past four years, "Architecture Readability" has evolved from the "Scan Code Reading" version 1.0, which sets QR codes to facilitate citizens and tourists to understand the stories behind buildings, to the "Open Architecture" version 2.0, which expands the openness of various types of buildings to allow citizens and tourists to enter historical buildings, and to the "Digital Transformation" version 3.0, which deeply utilizes digital methods and stimulates public participation. It has become the "preferred way" for citizens and tourists to read the city, history, culture, and people in the city. A number of classic routes connect the rich architectural resources in urban scenes. "Architecture Readable" is gradually becoming a cultural and tourism brand with millions of traffic.

In recent years, Shanghai has carried out a series of innovative practices in the field of cultural heritage protection. Shanghai has taken the lead in implementing regional system reform for the protection and utilization of cultural relics. Yangpu's "Life Show Belt" has become one of the first six national cultural relics protection and utilization demonstration zone creation projects in China.

On November 10, 2020, the National Cutural Heritage Administration and the Shanghai Municipal People's Government signed the Pilot Cooperation Agreement on Jointly Promoting the Comprehensive Reform of Social Cultural Relics Management, and the only systematic reform in the field of social cultural relics in China was launched in Shanghai. Over the past two years, by building a "main battlefield" for international participation in cultural relics and artworks trading, a "gathering place" for large-scale industries, a "preferred place" for market-oriented operations, and a "new highland" for reform and integration, we have focused on the bonded display and trading of cultural relics and artworks, the "5-piece tax exemption" policy for the China International Import Expo, the construction of the "Shanghai International Cultural Relics and Artworks Trading Center", the creative legislation of the Pudong Leading Zone, and the "June * N" system for temporary entry of cultural relics, among other institutional designs. We have better played the pivotal role of Shanghai's two sectors of internal and external opening up, and facilitated the return of overseas cultural relics, laying a solid foundation for the sustainable and high-quality development of social cultural relics protection and utilization.

Fang Shizhong, Director of the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, stated that "at a new historical starting point, we must strengthen cultural confidence, uphold openness and inclusiveness, adhere to integrity and innovation, vigorously promote the creative transformation and innovative development of excellent traditional Chinese culture, and strive to create a 'Shanghai sample' of cultural confidence and self-improvement, contributing Shanghai's strength to the construction of modern civilization of the Chinese nation.".