Last Christmas, as I was traveling home for the holidays, I noticed in the airport terminal in Miami a photography exibition titled, "Art Deco in Shanghai and Miami Beach"
The inscription read (parentheses are mine), "While Miami Beach houses the largest concentration of Art Deco architecture in the world (of Florida), it is less well-known that Shanghai has the greatest collection of Art Deco architecture in Asia (after Mumbai.) This photography exhibit comparing the Art Deco architecture of Miami Beach and Shanghai was born out of a series of cultural exchanges that culminated in Miami Design Preservation League's 2007 Art Deco Weekend: East Meets West, Art Deco from Shanghai to Miami."
Americans are fond of superlatives and references such as the biggest this, the most that. I tend to add to words such as "in the world", "of the state of etc. etc.". I lived in Texas 15 years, where everything is bigger. I don't know if Shanghai has the largest collectionof Art Deco architecture in Asia. That superlative is also attributed to Mumbai in a wikepedia article. Yet you cannot believe the article's claim because Shanghai is not mentioned in it.
The context of this display was in an airport terminal. They were put very high on the wall, hence the distortion of the pictures. There are also reflections of lighting. The space was not designed for an exhibition. They are in order of which they were curated, which I think was intended to show buildings in both cities that appear to be similar.
Shanghai
Miami Beach
The historic post office in South Beach
(edit: as i was walking home today, i saw a couple looking at architecture with a guide book. in the book was a picture of this building. i asked them where it was. they pointed to it. it was in front of the entrance to my home! i had not noticed it before. then i looked at the buildings around it and noticed more art deco buildings.)
I find it funny to compare the Bund to the South Beach hotels. Both locations are in front of water, but the buildings are totally different in scale.
Peace Hotel in the Bund
The Colony Hotel in Miami Beach
The remainder of these pictures are of buildings in Shanghai
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