Industrial relics, as an important witness of history and culture and a legacy of urban development, accompany urban renewal and cultural continuity in a new way when transformed into creative cultural venues, fashion streets and characteristic parks under the innovative ideas and skillful hands of artists and planners.

Baowu’s profile steel factory, nearly 1 km in length, 100 meters in width, and 20 meters in height, is located in Baoshan District, Shanghai. Its rusty truss and peeling roof are reminiscent of the industrial glory of the past. Today, this area has been designated as the Wusong campus of the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts of Shanghai University, which will be the first fine arts academy in China to be built on an original industrial base. It is of great significance to not only the higher education of fine arts in Shanghai and even China, but also to the building of an image of Shanghai-style culture and urban spirit.

Rendering view of Wusong campus of Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts of Shanghai University

What’s more, the Wusong campus of the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts of Shanghai University is only a brush stroke in the blueprint of the 26-square-kilometer Wusong Innovation Town. As an important area for the future spatial development of Shanghai and the “Northern and Southern transformation” strategy, Wusong Innovation Town is to be built into a demonstration area for the transformation and development of the old industrial base of Shanghai and urban renewal through innovative exploration, a cluster area for national innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship, and an expansion area for cultural tourism of the international metropolis, practicing the idea of “the people’s city is built by the people and for the people”.

Artistic innovation prompts district development

In Shanghai’s efforts to comprehensively improve its soft power, the role of culture and art is irreplaceable.

“The factory gave me quite a surprise when I first stepped into there for an inspection some years ago. For one thing, I did not expect Shanghai to have such a good industrial heritage that can be used for art education and talent development, and the project’s intention actually fits well with the school’s operation philosophy of “building an art institute that promotes new Shanghai-style art in a new era for the people, for art, for life and for the city”. We intend to “set an international urban art landmark in China and show the beauty of the country”, which can be translated to building a world-class fine arts academy matching this international metropolis. For another, this industrial heritage renovation project is unique, unprecedented, and full of imagination and creativity, which will inject new vitality and create a new paradigm for Shanghai’s urban renewal”, said Zeng Chenggang, then vice dean of the Academy of Fine Arts of Tsinghua University and now dean of the Academy of Fine Arts of Shanghai University. Excited about the project, he did not hesitate to move from Beijing to Shanghai, striving to preserve the entire plant in several design schemes, so that the Academy of Fine Arts can “move in” faster.

It is reported that the project was initially raised by Baowu Group who contacted Shanghai University in 2015 and proposed to introduce the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts to help promote the transformation and upgrading of the stainless-steel factory. After a series of efforts, the Shanghai Municipal Government approved the site selection plan of the project in June 2021. In September 2022, Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, Shanghai University, Baowu Group and Baoshan District Government signed the Framework Agreement on the Construction of the Main Campus Project of Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, Shanghai University, which clarified the main implementation of the Wusong campus project of the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, and the important timeline is to start construction in 2023 and achieve complete delivery before September 2026.

In 2018, Shanghai Industrial Investment Company (SIIC) implemented the work deployment of the Shanghai Municipal Government, and established a platform company—Baodi Shangshi—together with Baowu Group and Baoshan District to promote the development and construction work of the stainless-steel plant area. In March 2023, SIIC established a state-funded platform company—Shanghai Shangshi New City Development Co., Ltd., to undertake the investment and construction of the Wusong campus of the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts and other renewal projects in the plant area, as part of the efforts to promote the overall urban renewal and transformation and upgrading of the plant.

At present, after taking over the construction task of Wusong Campus of Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, SIIC, taking into consideration the preliminary planning and design, the safety testing of the existing building and the project approval status, expects to start the construction of part of the pile foundation by the end of September this year.

Rendering view of Wusong campus of Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, Shanghai University

According to the plan, the building of the Wusong Campus will completely retain the original architectural style and set up the core of education, international education and the development of new Shanghai-style art, as well as supporting museum facilities based on the spatial characteristics of steel plant, to create the core area of Wusong International Art Town focusing on art education and the attraction of international art talents and resources.

It is reported that in the future, the new campus will also provide “lifelong education” programs, a model that makes university education open to different ages of the whole society. As aesthetic education is “suitable for all ages”, this move will contribute to making more people feel the charm of art and the city’s cultural genes be better inherited and developed.

Sophisticated efforts to renovate the “steel giant”

The Wusong campus of Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, Shanghai University is located in the original profile steel factory of Baowu Stainless Steel Plant (former Shanghai No.1 Steel Factory), with a planned land area of 165,400 square meters, a net land area of 126,500 square meters, and an above-ground capacity building area of 221,000 square meters. From suburban farmland to a completed profile steel factory in operation in September 1989, and to the production of steel making, continuous casting, hot rolling and other production lines in 2000, the profile steel factory was a project of the most complex engineering design, highest quality requirements, and largest scale in the 50 years of Shanghai No.1 Steel Plant’s development since its establishment in 1938. The then renewed plant space enriched the production structure and product categories of the Shanghai Steel Plant, and represented the spirit and memory of Baogang people’s courage in exploring new areas.

As the factory space is huge and the spatial structure of the building is complex, a series of practical problems pose challenges to the planners, such as what to do to retain the original skeleton and the industrial traces and memories while making full use of the structure, and how to meet the needs of the road traffic passing through the outside of the plant while satisfying the lighting requirements of the art classroom inside the plant.

Current profile steel factory of Baowu stainless steel plant

The design scheme, worked out by GMP and Tongji Architectural Design, retains the existing structure for seismic testing and style screening, while other special designs and certifications such as architecture style, fire protection, parking, road, seismic function, curtain wall, civil air defense and the service life of teaching buildings are in steady progress.

In line with the scientific attitude of bold innovation and rigorous practice, an expert seminar on the construction of the Wusong Campus of the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts was recently held at the construction site, and experts offered suggestions on the key and difficult problems encountered in the operation process of the current project, giving full play to their strengths to promote the stable advancement of the project.

For example, in view of problems such as building deformation, material strength and concrete spalling, proposals were given by survey and design experts from Arcplus Group and SIADR, we well as officials from the special committee of architectural design and urban renewal from the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality that the transformation should reduce the load of the building, use silane impregnation and other permeable concrete protective agents, and reinforce key parts of serious damage through outsourcing, so as to ensure the safety of the building and its bearing capacity meet the needs of future use. In the future, the inspection and review of key technologies will also be carried out at different periods of the plant renovation.

Rendering view of Wusong campus of Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, Shanghai University

“When I first came here in early 2016, the boiler in the factory was still burning, and now the factory is starting to breathe new life after it was completely shut down at the end of 2016”, said an expert in historical building protection and professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He expressed his delight in seeing the factory to be completely preserved and transformed into the campus of the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts and added that such an innovative industrial heritage transformation on a building with large-scale axial symmetry will play a model role in the urban renewal of Shanghai and the building of an international metropolis with global influence.

Since a wall will be set to form a closed space, the wall itself can be another artistic resource. “We will use the wall for international graffiti art creation activities as a way of promotion, and invite famous graffiti masters and teachers and students of the Academy of Fine Arts to create works on the wall and make it a beautiful landscape”, said Zeng Chenggang.

New Shanghai-style art landmark drives new development

For a long time in the past, the impression of Baoshan in the mind of Shanghai people is its long distance from the city center and its steel industry giant Baosteel. From “black smoke billowing” to “black light factory”, the industrial buildings left by Baosteel after its self-transformation are like a series of fascicules in history tomes, serving as an important witness and valuable wealth of Shanghai’s industrial and urban progress.

From the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts to Wusong Innovation Town, actively exploring the methods and paths of the overall transformation of the old industrial base has become a new mission in the new era for Baoshan District, a place with a hundred years of opening port, and a hundred years of industrial and education development where the first shot of Shanghai liberation fired.

According to the Shanghai Master Plan (2017-2035) and the Master Plan and Land Use Master Plan of Baoshan District (2017-2035), the Wusong main town sub-center and the Wusong municipal-level sub-center are to be added and built spanning the outer ring. The Wenzaobang waterfront area, for example, with transformation and development as the core and combined with the construction of the Wusong municipal-level sub-center, will be built into a riverside development zone featuring commercial office buildings, recreational sports and leisure areas, and scientific and technological R&D centers. In this way, it will serve to promote the transformation of riverbank industrial functions, and accelerate the integrated development of urban areas on both sides of the river.

Wusong Innovation Town, located at the intersection of the Yangtze River, Huangpu River and Wenzaobang River, spans an area of 26 square kilometers which extends east to Tongji Road and Huangpu River, west to Jiangyang North Road and Hulin Road, south to Yangtze River West Road and Jungong Road, and north to Youyi Road.

It is the largest and most complete urban construction land with the overall transformation conditions close to the center of Shanghai, with a long coastline along the Wenzaobang River and Huangpu River, the largest industrial historical style area in Shanghai, and unique natural ecological and historical and cultural resources. For such a rare “coat material”, “making clothes” according to their features is very important.

From the 2,500 cubic meter blast furnace of Shanghai First Iron and Steel Works to “Golden Stove, China Baowu Steel Conference and Exhibition Center”, to the Shanghai Baoshan renewable energy utilization Center project, which has both wet and dry waste treatment and power generation functions and has become a world-advanced “full dedicated comprehensive park landscape environmental protection industrial plant” demonstration project. New projects are adding new landmarks to Baoshan, speeding up the overall transformation and urban renewal of the district.

The person in charge of the project in SIIC said that in the future, it will adhere to the planning guidance, deepen the functional layout, grasp the development timing, and pay more attention to the strategic reserved land while at the same time combining the planning of the area, comprehensively considering the development objectives, government needs, industrial development and capital balance to make phased development, explore the new path of the overall urban renewal of the old industrial base, and try to build Wusong Innovation Town into a sample of modernization transformation in the new era.