M50 art district in Shanghai. A journey through old/new architecture // M50 Art District a Shanghai. Un percorso tra vecchie/nuove architetture

The 50th Moganshan Lu is a system of industrial buildings built from 1930 which illustrate the growth of Shangtex – a industrial textile company owned by the Shangtex Holding Corporation - and the evolution of construction technique used in industrial facilities in Shanghai. From the mid-1980s artistic life in China changed: painters and sculptors until then employed by the State, begin to exhibit in domestics and foreign private galleries and the 50 Moganshan Lu abandoned by the textile industry, was transformed into a coordinate system of galleries and studios. This paper presents a journey through the old revisited and redeveloped spaces, reading them through the constructive solution adopted during the construction phase and the period of transformation and redevelopment.