Celebrating birthdays in a "young person's way", Wukang Building turns 100 this year

From May 22 to June 9, Germany's largest toy brand "Playmobil World" held an art exhibition at the Old House Art Center, No. 393 Wukang Road. It is worth mentioning that the theme of this exhibition is "100th Anniversary of Wukang Building". Not only the cartoon miniature model of Wukang Building is displayed on site, but also the interior scenes of the building are restored from the perspective of the toy world, which arouses the curiosity of citizens and tourists, especially young audiences. The curiosity of a century-old building.

From 1924 to 2024, whether it is the "Normandy Apartment" when it first revealed its true appearance, or the Wukang Building that has long been "dominating" the most popular landmarks in Shanghai, the Wukang Building has experienced a century of ups and downs, and its popularity and influence are spanning generations.

Playmobil World's "100th Anniversary of Wukang Building" art exhibition site. Photo provided by the organizer

To this end, this year Xuhui District has set up a series of activities with the theme of "100th Anniversary of Wukang Building" throughout the year, covering the centenary "portrait" of Wukang Building drawn by "post-90s" illustrators, and the 5-year-old "Love of Light and Night" game in collaboration with Tencent. A two-dimensional male protagonist started offline check-in, cooperated with Shanghai 2nd Connection Design Team to develop the VR exhibition "Shanghai 1924", and held a pop-up experience exhibition at No. 393 Wukang Road with Playmobil World to get closer to "Generation Z" with novel cultural experiences "Group, let the century-old buildings and historical districts glow with new splendor.

"One minute to take photos and check in" or "a whole day of walking around the neighborhood"

In 1924, the "ISS Normandie Apartments Normandy Apartments" named after the administrative region of Normandy in northern France, was built on the above ground. The building has eight floors, with an arcade on the ground floor, shaped like a giant ship. It is not only one of the earliest verandah-style apartment buildings in Shanghai, but also one of the only three remaining ship-shaped buildings in the world. In 1954, the building was officially named "Wukang Building"; in 1994, it was selected into the second batch of outstanding historical buildings in Shanghai.

Today, the Wukang Building, standing at the intersection of five roads including Wukang Road, Xingguo Road, Huaihai Middle Road, Tianping Road and Yuqing Road, continues to exude its unique charm with its smooth architectural arcs, romantic gallery arches and nostalgic red bricks.

In the introduction of Wukang Building, you can often see the description that "Zhao Dan, Sun Daolin, Wang Wenjuan and many other cultural celebrities have lived here." However, it may be difficult for today’s “post-00s” and “post-10s” generation to have a strong emotional resonance with the lives and works of these art masters. As the Wukang Building turns 100 years old, how can it establish new connections with today's young people?

Shanghai Hengfu Investment Development Co., Ltd. is responsible for operating the cultural brand of "Charming Hengfu", a historical neighborhood. Yao Jiayin, the company's deputy general manager, said that based on WeChat heat map estimates, the average daily passenger flow around the Wukang Building is between 25,000 and 30,000, and more than 40,000 on weekends and holidays. Among commercial formats, clothing, light catering, and cultural formats such as bookstores and exhibitions are very popular. The topic of "Wukang Building" on Xiaohongshu has been viewed more than 76 million times, and the topic of "100th Anniversary of Wukang Building" has also been viewed more than 300,000 times.

"We hope that the 'Centennial Wukang' themed event will enable young people to change from 'stopping for one minute to take photos and check in' in front of the building to 'walking around the block all day,' so that the humanistic heritage behind this 'Internet celebrity' building will be exposed to more people. I know." Yao Jiayin said.

"Post-90s" illustrator Zeng Yixin was born in Chongqing. He has previously created illustrations for many well-known domestic and foreign brands such as Dior, Mercedes-Benz, and Tmall. This "illustration portrait" design for the Wukang Building is his first creation based on a historical building.

"I chose to use surrealist techniques instead of traditional landscape paintings, hoping to reflect the overlapping imprint of time and space carried by the Wukang Building." Zeng Yixin said, the main visual whale on the picture seems to be carrying the Wukang Building towards the front; The elements of "time gears" are hidden in the trees around the building. First, it reflects the dimension of time. Second, it represents that the building riding a giant whale has witnessed the changes of the times over the past century.

Illustrations created by Zeng Yixin for the centenary of Wukang Building

Tong Ming, a professor at the School of Architecture at Southeast University, said in a previous interview that for a building to become an "Internet celebrity" it must have at least four conditions: scarcity, topicality, appearance characteristics and "a display stage", and Wukang Building happens to have all of them. These characteristics are particularly clear to Zeng Yixin, who grew up in Sichuan.

After Zeng Yixin came to Shanghai to work in 2017, she lived in Hengfu Style District for two years. Her studio was also located on Huaihai Middle Road near the building. It was not until the early autumn of 2023 that he finally walked into this excellent historical building that still fully retains its residential function for an in-depth inspection. The young artist was deeply impressed by the building's ArtDeco-style architectural features.

"The semi-circular gallery, the cement imitation stone walls, the triangular pediments above the door and window openings...the details are all clearly visible!" What made him even more unexpected was that this building that has been baptized for hundreds of years can still make people feel the real world. Fireworks. When he was creating, he read a lot of information about the Wukang Building and communicated with residents. He learned that the Wukang Building not only completed the largest protective renovation in this century in 2019, but also optimized the second-floor platform of the building in 2022. Residents A "sky garden" is established on the terrace, where flowers can be planted and clothes can be dried, showing an ingenious collision of modern life and classical architecture.

At present, the Wukang Building illustration designed by Zeng Yixin has not only become the main visual of the 2024 "Charming Hengfu" cultural, business and tourism integration promotion activity, but will also be made into a commemorative cultural creation, which is expected to be applied to the Shanghai Transportation Card mobile phone card in June.

For cultural and creative and technology companies, participating in various activities for the 100th anniversary of the Wukang Building will not only make their young audiences care about history and culture, but also a two-way empowerment to improve the quality of the content of digital technology products.

During the May Day holiday, at popular landmarks in Hengshan Fang and other Hengfu style areas, you can see many young people taking photos with two-dimensional picture frames. The characters on the yellow frames are the well-known digital IPs of Tencent Games. The five male protagonists of "The Love of Light and Night". In addition to offline check-in, in this online game, players can also obtain Wukang Building limited commemorative stickers, take photos with the five male protagonists in front of Wukang Building, experience Wukang Building up close in the game, and experience the leap brought by digital media Space sightseeing experience.

Young people came to Hengshanfang to attend the "Love of Light and Night" pop-up during the May Day holiday. Photo by Shu Shu

Tencent Games said that in the past two years, game companies have clearly felt that at a time when the Internet is bursting with vitality and economic and cultural development is becoming increasingly prosperous, young people are paying more and more attention to Chinese history and traditional culture. It just so happens that games, as a multi-dimensional content carrier that simultaneously includes images, plots, sounds, and interactions, can convey different aspects of history and culture relatively comprehensively and vividly. People can always find a game that attracts them and increase their interest in history and culture. .

Playmobil World's "100th Anniversary of Wukang Building" art exhibition site. Photo provided by the organizer

As a toy brand under the Horst Brandstätter Group, Germany's largest toy manufacturer, Playmobil World, which just celebrated its 50th anniversary this year, has created more than 8,500 character professional looks. Li Ming, General Manager of Playmobil World China, said in an interview with reporters that toys themselves have the inherent advantage of transforming scenes. Therefore, in the pop-up experience exhibition at No. 393 Wukang Road, Playmobil World used toy elements to "re-enact" Wukang. Scenes inside and outside the building. For example, based on an old photo of Hudec taken in 1924, and referring to Hudec's shape and office layout elements, the scene of the Wukang Building designer writing and meditating in the office was "restored".

The life scenes of film performing artist Sun Daolin and Yue opera performing artist Wang Wenjuan and his wife in the Wukang Building were also recreated through the cartoon version of the toy world. Li Ming introduced that the design team referred to the photo taken by the two artists in Room 404 of the Wukang Building where they lived, and tried to reconstruct the happy state of the couple when they took a photo in the corridor of the building, recreating the history of pressing the shutter. The sexual moment shows today’s audience the different styles of the residents of Wukang Building over the past century.

Playmobil World's "100th Anniversary of Wukang Building" art exhibition site. Photo provided by the organizer

From June 6 to mid-July, the "Shanghai 1924" VR exhibition will be held at the Wukang Road Tourism Information Center, taking the audience to the scene when the Wukang Building was built a century ago using virtual reality technology.

According to the Shanghai 2nd Connection Design Team, the project producer, from the street view and exterior of Wukang Building to the classic apartment structure inside, the team tried to present the modern architectural design, Art Deco style interior decoration and even the pictures of a century ago as authentically as possible The furniture, daily necessities, packaging and font design in the brand all strive to be "face-friendly".

At the same time, the production team "cut open" the entire building to show the building's interior layout, infrastructure, transportation lines and other fashionable designs from a century ago. They also unearthed important historical figures and historical events related to the Wukang Building as stories Clues connect the entire exhibition.

With the development of technology in fields such as digital interaction and artificial intelligence, the use of technological means to connect history and the present is becoming a new trend in cultural tourism experience.

According to the Second Connection design team, the "Shanghai 1924" VR exhibition uses "large space immersive walking technology". Through spatial calculation, the camera positioning of VR glasses and the real-time feedback system are deeply bound, allowing the audience to move in the virtual space. The "walking" corresponds to the displacement in the real space, allowing the audience to be more "immersed" in the historical scene. Due to the rich details of historical buildings, the requirements for VR real-time rendering technology are also higher. Therefore, this VR exhibition also uses cloud rendering, eye movement optimization, triggered interaction and other technologies to present the final effect.

“The primary task of VR content creation for historical buildings is the true texture of details and the depth of humanistic connotations, which requires the integration of multidisciplinary knowledge, including Shanghai’s urban history, architectural history, social history related to lifestyle, and design history. Even music history, art history, etc.” The person in charge of the Second Connection design team said that although the production process is not easy, this is precisely the meaning of the existence of virtual reality technology. "VR content can openly absorb all kinds of knowledge, allowing cross-disciplinary cooperation to turn from imagination to 'reality'."

Through this exhibition, the team also gained valuable experience in using technological means to restore historical architectural scenes. According to the person in charge, virtual reality content production integrates heritage digitization, VR games, immersive drama and other sectors, involving concept creation, script writing, and the modeling process includes art design, animation design, program design, sound design, and virtual character clothing. Design, motion capture, dubbing production, as well as exhibition design and interactive design during exhibitions. "Coordinating and coordinating all parties is an important experience we gained in the process of 'restoring' the Wukang Building."

The reporter learned that VR equipment is still in the iterative stage of rapid development, and the challenges it faces include how to overcome dizziness, enhance immersion, and how to establish a seamless connection between the virtual and real worlds, including Apple's VR glasses product VisionPro. are all trying this.

Under the requirements of large-space walking technology, currently VR content experience still requires a large column-free space. With the optimization of glasses positioning technology and the emergence of supporting hardware such as "universal carpets", more new application scenarios may emerge. As emerging cultural tourism projects and commercial real estate projects increasingly value the importance of new business formats in attracting popularity, VR technology empowers cultural and business tourism and there will be more new opportunities.

At the end of 2021, Playmobil World settled in Hengshanfang, and then opened China's first flagship store here. When communicating with customers, Li Ming and his colleagues noticed that when many tourists checked in to the nearby Wukang Building, they usually only hurriedly admired the appearance of the building and rarely had the opportunity to go deep into the building to understand the story behind the building. In Li Ming's view, on the one hand, the Wukang Building is still a residential building, and it is indeed inconvenient for tourists to enter the building. On the other hand, the traditional exhibition introduction format has made it difficult for visitors who are accustomed to fast pace to stop and read carefully. This is why, in the special exhibition of the 100th anniversary of Wukang Building, Playmobil World specially restored the apartment living scenes inside the building.

The Second Union design team also chose to use VR technology to restore the interior of the building, allowing the audience to experience the Wukang Building from a "surreal" perspective. In the team's view, for a historical building that is very familiar to people like the Wukang Building, the traditional digital twin presentation method is not enough. The audience should be allowed to feel the humanistic connotation and even the world view in the VR scene, thereby creating an emotional connection and sense of identity.

To this end, in addition to the existing architectural surveying and mapping data, the design team also referred to Hudec's original drawings when he designed the Wukang Building, trying to restore the original building a hundred years ago according to his original design concept. During this process, what impressed the design team most was the modern texture of Shanghai apartment life a century ago.

“Just like today’s serviced apartments, the Wukang Building was equipped with advanced property services at the time, including central heating, garbage disposal, food delivery services, etc. The foyer and corridor were spaces with public attributes, which attracted many people who had just graduated from the building at that time. Residents who moved into modern apartments in traditional large houses began to adapt to the new relationship between the privacy of family life and the public nature of social life. "In the view of the design team, the modern life represented by the apartments represented by Wukang Building, It promoted the formation of Shanghai's urban citizen consciousness at that time, and these elements will be presented in this VR exhibition.

During the interview, the reporter found that all the teams and artists involved in the design of the "100th Anniversary of Wukang Building" event are very young. Everyone has reached a tacit consensus: not to commemorate in a "slogan style", but to use what they are good at and what is most suitable for today's young people. The Wukang Building in people’s minds is presented in the way that people expect.

Therefore, Tencent Games summarized the previous experience of cooperation with famous historical and cultural cities such as Luoyang, Xi'an, and Kaifeng in "Love of Light and Night", and used the unique romantic atmosphere of Wukang Building and Hengfu Scenic Area as the main elements of interactive check-in, and combined with this game The romantic game echoes offline and online; Zeng Yixin changed the emphasis on service and functionality when creating illustrations for the brand, giving priority to exploring the historical and cultural symbols of the Wukang Building itself, and connecting these visual languages ​​into stories to present in the paintings superior.

In recent years, relying on the regional characteristics of "Century Architecture and Centenary Humanity" in Hengfu Style District, the "Charming Hengfu" brand has successively launched cultural experiences and cultural products such as Wukang Road City Walk, Wukang Building Ice Cream, Wukang Building Digital Collection, and Hengfu Terrace Series Brooches. Create products. Blackstone Apartments also celebrates its centenary this year. The 11th Renaissance Art Festival with the theme of celebrating and commemorating the "Centennial of Blackstone" is expected to be held from September to October.

Yao Jiayin said that while the "Charming Hengfu" operation team highlights the "national trend" and highlights the historical and cultural characteristics of the style area, it always pays attention to hot spots in the cultural and creative market and current trend topics, and finds that the Hengfu style area contains the characteristics of Hengfu style area. Architectural and humanistic elements are popular design themes among today’s younger generation. Next, "Charming Hengfu" will also expand the "Hengfu IP" series around popular architectural and cultural elements such as Wukang Building, Blackstone Apartments, Jianyeli, and "Fuxing Cat" to better promote historical buildings and history. The organic renewal and revitalization of blocks helps the continuation, inheritance and innovation of the city's historical context.