1933 Old Millfun: the silent slaughterhouse
Shanghai's 1933 slaughterhouse, now an empty concrete labyrinth of ramps, bridges and stairs, photographed in high-contrast black and white.
I first saw 1933 Old Millfun in a series of pictures on Instagram, and went to see it in person during our ten days in Shanghai.
A bit of history
The building was finished in 1933 as Shanghai's municipal slaughterhouse, in the Hongkou district. Its shape follows its old job: a square outer building wrapped around a round central hall, the two tied together by bridges, with ramps winding between the floors for the cattle to walk up. Today it is a creative and commercial complex, but the concrete is all still there.
Empty and silent
Inside, it was empty and silent. No crowd, no noise, just floor after floor of concrete. It felt like an empty labyrinth on many levels, really special.
The circus
At the heart is the round hall, which I call the circus. From the bottom, in Circus low view, curved bridges and ramps wind above the ground floor. Halfway up, they float in the dark, stacked one above the other. From the top, in Circus high view, the whole thing falls away layer after layer.
Around it, the corridors are dark. Mushroom columns repeat along a dark gallery with a few windows of light. A lone silhouette stands at the end of an arched corridor, with the only light coming from the far side. Through a narrow opening, a staircase lost in black: A pinhole view of the stairs. And in Chaotic beams, the stairs and beams cross in every direction at once.
Why black and white
I shot it both ways. In this album everything is black and white with high contrast, because mixing architecture with black and white and high contrast is what I find really interesting. The colour versions keep colour only in the lights.
Photographer's notes
All of it was shot on the X-T5 with the 25mm, almost always wide open at f/1.7 or f/2, between 1/125s and 1/500s at ISO 125 to 200. The one exception is the empty corridor, at ISO 1600.
Album1933 OLD MILLFUN
Practical tips
- It is in Hongkou, north of the Bund.
- Take your time on every level: the circus looks different from the bottom, the middle and the top.
- Expect the dark: the light barely gets in, so a bright lens helps.
