SHANGHAI MUSEUM OF ARTS AND CRAFTS

This modest museum is located at the heart of the French concession, in a beautiful Renaissance house built in 1905, which was the residence of the director of the French Chamber of Commerce. A large marble fountain is located in the centre of a large park. In 1950, Chen Yi, the first mayor of Shanghai, briefly attended home. The building, which had hosted the World Health Organization representation just after the war against Japan, then served as a seat at the Association for Sino-Soviet Friendship in 1954. The Institute was established in 1960 to preserve a century-old local artisanal tradition. The Institute's activities include research on local and national heritage, the creation of new artisanal models, the development of artistic treaties, research on materials and techniques.

The various workshops of the Institute can be visited; we can then admire the craftsmen, sorted on the track, implementing ancestral techniques and largely forgotten elsewhere in China: manufacture of figurines, cuts, embroidery, brocades, stone stones, sculptures on wood and bamboo, waterproofing objects, jade works, paintings… A good way to get to the multiple facets of local crafts. The institute has, of course, a shop where you can buy items made on site or in the workshops in the region. It is better to avoid lunch time to visit this museum whose main attraction remains the discovery of manufacturing techniques: the craftsmen are at this time all eating or sleeping soundly on their offices…