SHANGHAI, CHINA: Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Centre

A scale model of Shanghai in 2020 spans an entire floor at the Urban Planning Museum in People's Square.  Ariana Lindquist for The New York Times

• Address:  Renmin Da Dao 100, Shanghai
• Location:  Huangpu (northeast of the Shanghai Museum; entrance on east side)
• Phone:  021/6372-2077
• Price:  Admission ¥30 ($4.30/£2.15)

NEW YORK TIMES: 

This museum tells the story of Shanghai’s evolution with a spectacular collection of archival photos, meaningless but beautiful exhibitions on wastewater management and other public works, and a scale model of Shanghai circa 2020 that spanned an entire floor.  Virtual Shanghai, a computer-generated flyover of the city projected onto a 360-degree movie screen was the highlight. The camera swoops along highways, over the Huangpu and around the Pudong skyscrapers of an idealized city that may or may not exist. The souvenir shop carries Hu Yang’s “Shanghai Living” catalog — 140 photographic glimpses of the city’s present, frozen in time.

FROMMER’S:

Filmmakers and science-fiction writers have imagined it, but if you want to see what a city of the future is really going to look like, take yourself over to this museum on the eastern end of People's Square. Housed in a striking modern five-story building made of microlite glass, this is one of the world's largest showcases of urban development and is much more interesting than its dry name suggests. The highlight is on the third floor: an awesome vast scale model of urban Shanghai as it will look in 2020, a master plan full of endless skyscrapers punctuated occasionally by patches of green. The clear plastic models indicate structures yet to be built, and there are many of them. Beleaguered Shanghai residents wondering if their current cramped downtown houses will survive the bulldozer (chances are not good) need only look here for the answer. The fourth floor also offers displays on proposed forms of future transportation, including magnetic levitation (maglev), subway, and light-rail trains that are going to change even the face of the Bund. The rest of the building includes a U-shaped mezzanine with photographic exhibits of colonial and contemporary Shanghai, a temporary exhibit hall on the second floor, and a cafe and art gallery on the fifth. There are restaurants and retail outlets crafted in the style of 1930s Shanghai on the underground level that connects to the Metro. The museum is well worth an hour of your time.

NATIONAL GEOGRPAHIC TRAVELER:

“Back to the future Shanghai-style: exultant visions of the Shanghai to come.”—Damian Harper. Museum features miniature replica of Shanghai today (ground floor) and a scale model of the city’s future (entire third floor); exhibits chronicle Shanghai’s colorful history. 100 Renmin Dadao; tel. 86 21 6318 4477.

LONELY PLANET:

Urban Planning Exhibition Halls - where the creaking cities of yore are triumphantly redesigned by developers into fabulous metropolitan visions - are all the rage in New China (Běijīng has one). It's pitched as a tourist attraction, but this is really just a massively optimistic self-appraisal. Most Western visitors are in town to see how the city used to be rather than how it may be.

The diorama of the Shanghai of the future on the third floor is worth a circuit, while the brilliant (albeit self-congratulating) Virtual World 3-D wraparound tour of Shanghai is a dizzying computer simulated tour. Balancing it all out are photos of 1930s Shanghai and historic maps, and topping it all is a café and observation lounge. Exit the building through a basement street of mock 1930s cafés.