Shanghai Museum
Shanghai Museum used to be near the Bund. It is now situated in People's Square and its new buildings were built in 1996, designed by a Shanghai architect named Xing Tonghe. The new design symbolizes China's ancient understanding of the world: round sky and square earth. The museum has a circular roof and rectangular base. It stores 120,000 precious artifacts, which narrate a story of China's 5,000-year civilization.
Even though it opens eight hours a day, it's difficult to see every corner of the museum in one day. Sculpture, furniture, calligraphy, coins, ceramics, jade-ware, minority ethnic handicrafts and ancient bronzes are on display.
It's easy to look around on your own, since labels in English are arranged beside every piece. You can also rent an audio commentary machine, but you need to pay a deposit. A free double-page tour guide is available.
Shanghai Art Museum
Located on busy Nanjing Road in People's Square, Shanghai Art Museum has 12 exhibition halls, covering more than 5,000 square meters. The building itself is a charming area to walk around as it used to be the club house of Shanghai's Race Club built in the 1930's.
It was renovated as a museum in March 2000 and interestingly during the process some distinctly Chinese features were added to this British style building. These are the wooden structures which you can see next to the front gate (Zhu shi Ji gou in Chinese). They're a feature of traditional Chinese architecture in palaces and temples. The structure is held together through hammering together wooden joins and not a single piece of metal bolts or screws are used.
Whilst enjoying the architecture, you can also peruse the different exhibits that change throughout the year. Nominally the museum has no set style though there's a bias towards contemporary Chinese art——which makes an interesting contrast to the faded grandeur of the colonial era building. It is well worth spending an afternoon here to gain an insight into Chinese perspectives on modern art and modern life. Walking around the building will take around two to three hours depending on how carefully you want to look at the exhibits.
