Five museums you wouldn’t expect to find in Shanghai
Shanghai’s more offbeat museums offer esoteric insights into postage stamps and propaganda, urban planning, contemporary art and the life-saving good deeds of ‘the Chinese Schindler’
Every city worth its salt has a signature museum, filled to the brim with material culture from ages past. In London, it is the British Museum, New York has the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Louvre has become an emblem of Paris.
The impressive Shanghai Museum is the equivalent in its home city. Rated first among 261 museums in Shanghai on TripAdvisor, this ding-shaped building – the 1990s design was influenced by the ancient bronze cooking vessel – is home to millennia of Chinese craftsmanship and, like its international counterparts, can be a slightly overwhelming experience. It remains, however, a must-see for admirers of Chinese art and history buffs.
But what of those 260 other museums? Armed with a metro card and an open mind, I embark on a quest to find some less obvious museums and galleries worth visiting while in the metropolis.
