Virtual Shanghai

Shanghai Urban Space in Time

Editor: Christian Henriot (IAO - Lyon 2 University)

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Project history

Virtual Shanghai started as a project focused on Shanghai historical photographs. It was launched in 2000 as a collaborative project between the Institut d’Asie Orientale (CNRS-Lyon 2-ENS-LSH) and the Center for Chinese Studies of the University of California, Berkeley. The project received seed money from the France-Berkeley Fund. From its inception, “ Shanghai in Images ” as it was called by then, was developed under the aegis of ECAI and its wonderful mentor, Lewis Lancaster. In 2002, the Institut d’Asie Orientale received a MIRA grant from the Rhône-Alpes Regional Assembly to develop the initial database into an instrument devoted to a complete coverage of Shanghai history through photography. In the course of our work, we realized, however, that new tools - especially GIS – offered a tremendous potential for a more systematic approach of Shanghai history. Inspired in part by experiences implemented within ECAI, we decided to apply historical GIS to Shanghai. Eventually, in relation with previous research in cartography¹, we moved toward a reflection about issues and methods in the writing of history and decided to initiate a more global project about the history of Shanghai.

Objective

Virtual Shanghai represents an attempt at writing the history of the city through the combined use of textual (essays, original documents), visual (photographs, movies, images, drawings, etc.), sound (sound tracks, tunes, etc.) and cartographic documents. In its present stage, it provides mostly essays and textual records, photographs, and maps. Because it is in a process of elaboration, parts of the project are accessible only to the scholars involved in its development.

Overview

There are three main gateways into Virtual Shanghai. The first one takes the reader to textual documents. This section includes essays written by scholars, original archival documents, and chronologies. It is possible to read through the texts as in a book, or to browse through topics, or move alternatively between text and related visual and cartographic documents. The second gateway opens various visual paths. While topics are suggested in the way of albums, the reader is free to wander around within the visual database. All items of the visual collection are related either to textual records or/and cartographic data. They carry their own set of information. The third gateway offers a cartographic account of the city. It includes a large collection of historical maps from the earliest ones to satellite views of the city. A representative sample of historical maps is available in georeferenced format (GIS) and linked to the visual database. Finally, the GIS server presents numerous possibilities to see Shanghai at various times, under different angles, from the city level down to the block level. Through continuous research and additions – contributions are welcome – it will offer a complete collection of cartographic and territorial representations of Shanghai.

Methodology

Virtual Shanghai is made up of a series of interconnected relational databases. The elaboration and interconnection of the databases is following an incremental process. During phase one, the emphasis was on the construction of the photograph database, with a systematic search for photographs and research to identify their content. This phase is basically behind us in terms of conception, structure and operation. It now requires further expansion in terms of new images. Phase two has started with a focus on cartography. It includes various stages and interrelated tasks such as the digitizing of maps, their redrawing as vectorial maps and their georeferencing in GIS terms. At the same time, we have undertaken a thorough survey of the individual buildings and blocks of the city for various periods. This is meant to provide a tool for historical geography for scholars and students. The next step is the production of maps online in real time to fit the readers’ needs. Phase three will be devoted to the articulation of the visual database and the cartographic database around a common timeline. The next stages of the project will be announced as they come to completion.

1 See Henriot, Christian & Zheng Zu’an, Atlas de Shanghai. Espace et représentation de 1849 à nos jours, Paris, CNRS-éditions, 1999.

Page modified on 09 October 2006