The monumentalisation of a Red memorial: the sublimation of the Shanghai Shikumen at the founding site of the Communist Party of China

Political memorials remain being a developing chapter of the current heritage boom in China, with evolving heritage narratives that resonate with inner political changes. Analysing the Site of the First National Congress of the Communist Party of China in Shanghai, I argue that the search for the ‘origins’ of the place is rooted in authorised heritage discourses that motivate constant arrangements of heritage conservation and architectural and urban design around Shanghai’s vernacular residential type: the shikumen . Using qualitative methods like architectural analysis, site observation and semi-structured interviews, this paper analyses the sublimation of the Shanghai shikumen through three different stages, put in place at the site of the First National Congress since 1949 until today. Doing so, the paper puts forward the argument that interventions at the site do not follow a straightforward route to appropriate the shikumen type, but one that is subject to varying political orientations within the Party-State. Also, that politically motivated attention towards the vernacular origins of the site stresses the rising consideration towards the historic built environment in China, and related processes of heritage conservation and monumentalisation.