“Cities in turmoil” Workshop

Date September 17, 2011

The research group on “Cities in turmoil” held its first joint workshop 「『動亂中的城市』:歷史地理資訊系統與近代中國的城市生活」at the Institute of Modern History (Academia Sinica) on 15-16 September 2011. The meeting was a semi-open event as it was designed both as an academic and hand-on event. The project is an exploration of the use of historical GIS on several cities and topics in the Republican period. The contributors included:

Wu Jen-shu 巫仁恕, Institute of Modern History 中研院近史所 (Academia Sinica)
近代蘇州飲食服務業的空間變遷 ‭(‬1920-1945‭)‬ [The transformation of the space of food services in modern Suzhou]

Dorothee Rihal, Institut d’Asie Orientale (CNRS)
Political Change and Urban Space: The Transformation of Foreign Settlements in Hankou

Feng Yi 馮藝, Institut d’Asie Orientale (CNRS)
Petty crime and social disorder in 1920s-1930s Beijing

蔣杰, Ph.D. candidate, Institut d’Asie Orientale-East China Normal University
抗戰與上海盜搶犯罪:基於GIS系統的法租界案例研究 [The Anti-Japanese War and theft in Shanghai: a case study of the French Concession based on GIS]

Christian Henriot, Institut d’Asie Orientale (University of Lyon/Institut Universitaire de France)
The transformation of industrial space in the 1930s-1940s

Sun Huei-min 孫慧敏, Institute of Modern History 中研院近史所 (Academia Sinica)
抗戰時期上海的人口遷徙與住房危機 [Population movement and housing crisis in wartime Shanghai]

The project is supported by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange.

Shanghai industries in wartime

Date May 25, 2011

Shanghai industries in wartime
A whole new series of maps is now available on the Virtual Shanghai platform (see Maps – eAtlas) on the evolution of Shanghai industries during the early years of the war with Japan (1937-1945).  These maps are based on the annual surveys made by the Shanghai Municipal Police in the International Settlement between 1930 and 1940. While our main focus is the wartime period, the newly released maps include two prewar years, 1935 and 1936. We plan to expand this study to the early 1930s (1930 & 1931), as well as to 1934 for which new surveys have been dug out from the archives. All the maps include “International Settlement” in the original title.

Although the surveys cover only the International Settlement they represent a very large and representative sample of Shanghai industries. During the war, owing to the migration of factories from Chinese-administered territories into the International Settlement, the bulk of industries actually concentrated in this single area.

One of the challenges was to process this very rich and complex set of data. This was done through the use of GIS that offered the possibility to process these data and apply them to the various layers already in place. In particular, the increasingly complete historical street database and geocoded addresses allowed us to locate most of the factories (79%) at their exact original address. The use of GIS also allowed to trace the life of the factories through time, especially their fate after the 1937 conflict that erased entire areas in the city. In addition to location, the surveys provided data on workforce, nationality, and industrial branch. It is therefore possible to reconstruct the changing geography of industries in Shanghai over a 10-year period (1930-1940).

Factories and workforce in 1936

Factories and workforce in 1936

The new geography of death in Shanghai (1)

Date May 23, 2011

We have just posted a new map  that shows the distribution of funeral parlors and cemeteries in contemporary Shanghai. This is part of a long-term project on the history of death in the city. The map shows the location and size of cemeteries.  The largest cemeteries are quite clearly almost all distributed at the fringe of the municipality, far away from the urban districts.  One should not forget that the size of the Shanghai municipality as shown on this map is 6,340 sq. km. To pay respect to one’s ancestors means traveling rather long distances for most Shanghai residents. Yet burials are still limited in numbers and allowed only after cremation.

Immersive Virtual Shanghai @ University of Southern California

Date February 15, 2011


Christian Henriot will discuss how the introduction of digital technologies
has both fed into and stimulated major scholarly trends — visual
turn, spatial turn — over the last decade. The Virtual Shanghai
project and its more recent addition (Immersive Virtual Shanghai)
are attempts to built research platforms that integrate various
forms of historical narrative about modern Shanghai.
This event is cosponsored by the History Department, the Center for Transformative
Scholarship, the East Asian Studies Center, and the USC U.S.-China Institute.

iVS @ Fête de la Science

Date November 16, 2010

This is a brief photographic memo on the presentation of iVS at the Lyon Fête de la Science on October 21-24. We received groups of school teachers and their students during the first few days (Thanks Caroline, Dorothée, Feng Yi, and Gérald!). During the week-end the expo site was open to the general public. More than 4,000 people visited the Fête de la Science. iVS received a constant flow of visitors throughout the two days.

From left to right: The iVS installation (3 screens) – Eager school children – An intrigued public – The man behind the machine and ISH Secretary general – Too much immersion !

iVS at the Fête de la Science (II)

Date October 23, 2010

The three large screens and networked computers presented at the Fête de la Science allowed visitors to really enter the 3 D environment of Immersive Virtual Shanghai. Many people enjoyed traveling in the two different applications. In the first one, visitors could walk along the streets on different maps from mid 19th century to mid 20th century, with the possibility to explore the name and function of the different buildings and to watch connected photographs. The second application offered the possibility to explore the photographs data base.

iVS at the Fête de la Science

Date October 22, 2010

The complete installation of iVS with three large screens and three networked computers is now on show at the Fête de la Science, an annual nationwide event. It is part of the exhibition space of the Institut des Sciences de l’Homme. The event takes place at the Double Mixte Hall in Lyon (Lyon 1 – La Doua Campus) on October 21-24. It will be open to the public during the week-end, Saturday and Sunday from 1:00 to 6:00 p.m.

iVS on Youtube

Date September 30, 2010

For those who missed the action at the Shanghai Expo, a short introduction to iVS can be seen on Youtube. The short film was originally produced by and for Rhône-Alpes TV. Some nice souls (not us!) uploaded the movie on Youtube in two versions:

French: iVS sur Youtube

English: iVS on Youtube

Thanks folks !

iVS at Shanghai Expo (VI): On the Chinese World Wide Web

Date September 9, 2010

Following the article published in the Shanghai Evening Post (新闻晚报), the iVS project has received nation-wide attention and circulation on the Chinese World Wide Web.  To check it out, simply type (or copy) “时光地图” in the Google search bar ! You will find dozens of references and links. Chinese reading skills required !

iVS at Shanghai Expo (V): “The digital time traveler”

Date September 9, 2010

Global Times, a major English-language newspaper in China ran a feature article on iVS (Immersive Virtual Shanghai) by Zeng Weizhi in its September 6 issue. Entitled “The Digital Time Traveler“, the paper presents the purpose and scope of the iVS project to the large international readership in the country. This second article in a broadly circulated media speaks well for the strong attention the project engineered by Christian Henriot (Institut d’Asie Orientale) and Gérald Foliot (Institut des Sciences de l’Homme) has received in China.

Global Times: Feature article (download)


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