A futuristic wonderland of a museum, by Japanese digital art collective teamLab. Inside, it's a fantasy world spread across many rooms, with endlessly changing and interactive projections creating a disorienting trip akin to that bit in 2001: A Space Odyssey where... Read more
Until 2025, Centre Pompidou is collaborating with the West Bund Group to establish the most significant artistic exchange between France and China to date. The exterior of the building, designed by David Chipperfield, is nothing compared to its Parisian original, but... Read more
Opened in 2014, the Long Museum West Bund is the second of Chinese billionaire collectors Liu Yiqian and Wang Wei's expanding empire. The architecture is stunning - right on the waterfront, it was designed by Liu Yichun of Atelier Deshaus. Inside is a veritable who's... Read more
The 16th edition of the Croatian Museum of Illusions. The popular international attraction features puzzles, holograms and general optical trickery that will leave you well and truly bamboozled. Read more
A historical compound that used to house, among other things, the old Navy Club, the Columbia Country Club--a popular hangout for Americans in the 20s and 40s--and a mansion built for Sun Ke, the son of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, by Hungarian architect Lazlo Hudec. After the... Read more
50 Moganshan Lu, better known as M50, is Shanghai's most famous "gallery district," home to over 50 gallery spaces in Shanghai, and offers a cross-section of emerging Shanghainese and Chinese artists, working in a wide range of styles and mediums. Great for a day's... Read more
This new location for Shanghai Natural History Museum opened in Spring 2015. Shiny and new, its exhibitions are well funded, curated, and researched. Features dino-bots and lots of taxidermy, live bugs and amphibians, fossils and skeletons. Maximum educational... Read more
This is the new location for this slightly secretive museum. During December 2019, it moved out of its old basement and into this old-fashioned office building. Propaganda Poster Art Center has a collection of hundreds of original posters from the Mao years as well... Read more
The PSA is an impressive but cumbersome space, a huge building likened by curator Qui Zhijie to London’s Tate Modern. The PSA may have similar hardware to that legendary institution but it doesn’t have the software — the staffing, budgets, etc — to match.... Read more
Built in 1934 as the Shanghai Race Club and known for its iconic bell tower, the most recent two-year renovation of this space gave us one of Shanghai's best museums. It sports 9,800-square-meters (that's 2.42 acres) of exhibition area, with around 1,100 artifacts on... Read more
The best part of the Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai (MOCA) is the prime location smack dab in a lovely green portion of People's Square. Sunlight and panoramic views pour in through the museum's floor to ceiling glass walls. International exhibitions are the... Read more
Ferguson lane is a cute complex comprised of restaurants, cafes, shops, and galleries, all set in a lovely outdoor setting. It's a good stop on an afternoon walk through the area and offers a nice escape weather in the form of coffee at Coffee Tree, cocktail at Le... Read more
The Pottery Workshop is a professional pottery studio, started in Hong Kong in 1985, with the Shanghai branch opening in 2002. They focus on ceramic art education for adults, though also children's classes. The equipment's imported from the US and Japan. The second... Read more
A vast art museum, housed in the former Chinese Expo pavilion over in Pudong. Works on display span modern and contemporary periods, and there's also a steady rotation of temporary exhibitions, including lots from abroad. Good to know: it's free to get in, but you... Read more
Non-profit organization founded by Fosun Group and Fosun Foundation. The Art Center is co-designed by British design firm Foster + Partners and creative director Heatherwick Studio. The building features three layers of moving veils in appearance. The Art Center... Read more
1933 transforms an old art deco abattoir into a creative hub hosting restaurants, creative retail, design companies, artists, galleries and design and exhibition spaces across four heritage-listed building. Read more
Opened in Spring 2011, the Shanghai Museum of Glass is a welcome addition to the city's cultural scene. Housed in a renovated former factory, the beautifully displayed exhibits guide visitors through the history of glass, some of its lesser known applications and a... Read more
Powerlong is a real estate company and this museum is the show-and-tell space for its chairman, Xu Jiankang. Xu is a high-profile rich AF art collector and this is his non-profit space. The 23,000 square meter museum is anchored by a stunning minimalist ramp that... Read more
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
SmartShanghai.com is an independent media publication dedicated to honesty and editorial transparency. We are for Shanghai residents, written by a team of long-term, opinionated and knowledgeable writers and editors. We never give an opinion or recommendation that we wouldn’t also share with our own friends and family.
SMARTSHANGHAI
