Last year Time Out Magazine rated Chengdu’s Tangba Jie as one of the coolest neighborhoods in the world. This is probably not surprising to residents of Chengdu or anyone who has been following the city’s development over the past decade. Tangba Jie has always been a popular spot with locals as it is host to a wide array of classic (and affordable!) Sichaun street food vendors.
Now with the completion of the adjacent Taikoo Li commercial development and new subway stops nearby at Chunxi Lu and DongMen Bridge, Tangba Jie has exploded with new boutiques, hotels and bars. What makes Tangba Jie an especially great neighborhood is that while it has evolved, it still retains a quintessentially Chengdu vibe.
My good friend Kam Panesar recently did a walk-through of Tangba Jie with a local Chengdu TV station. Kam is a British architect whose practice, Urban Hybrid Architecture, has done several projects in and around Chengdu, inlcuidng one in Tangba Jie. Check out the video below to get a better sense of one of Chengdu’s (and China’s) hottest neighborhoods.
by Adam Mayer
T. Hahn - Interesting article and visual walkthrough, thank you for posting. I lived in Chengdu in the mid-80s, a time (almost) without cars and slow but frequent bus schedules. The old neighborhoods were of course very run down by then, but the fabric and intricate grid was still intact. Especially along the river all sorts of shenanigans were happening – pollution by small factories, rampant illegal/un-coded structures precariously perched above the water and so on. I spent a year and a half in the city, exploring all over and around. Just recently finished a course teaching about Chengdu’s latest development here at Berkeley, making use of my own materials as well as Jia Zhangke’s 24 City and other stuff. Quite fascinating what is happening post-Wenchuan in the Longmenshan range and around Dujiangyan city, too. Please keep reporting on that pat of China.