Shanghai Soap Factory Transformed into Coffee Shop, Centennial Industrial Heritage Reborn

Shanghai is a city full of coffee aroma. As of January 6, 2021, Shanghai ranked first in the number of cafes in China, with more than 6400, followed by Beijing and Guangzhou, according to Meituan. There are a variety of cafes in Shanghai, one of which is a blend of old industrial style and modern design, which is popular among Shanghai residents, which is located in the White Seven Cafe on the riverside of Yangpu.

The White Seven Cafe is transformed from the sewage treatment workshop of the Shanghai soap Factory. The innovative architectural design shows the historical changes of Shanghai Pujiang River. The signature White Seven Coffee and soap cake in the White Seven Cafe are loved by consumers. In order to cooperate with the 2019 Shanghai Urban Space Art season co-sponsored by the people's Government of Yangpu District of Shanghai, White Seven Cafe also opened simultaneously during this period and received a lot of attention.

According to NetEase's data, Shanghai, with a profound coffee culture, is the city with the largest number of Starbucks, while Lujiazui is the densely distributed area of non-independent cafes in Shanghai. Compared with other cities, Shanghai residents' acceptance of coffee is the highest. Even though Shanghai has undergone various reforms and changes, coffee culture has never faded out of Shanghai. Although the domestic coffee culture cannot be compared with the strong foreign coffee culture, Shanghai can indeed be called a city that can drink coffee. Shanghainese are very dependent on coffee. According to Meituan data, people aged 30-40 have dominated coffee consumption in Shanghai in the past three years, but their number of users and orders have been declining, while the number of users and orders aged 20-30 has increased significantly.

Shanghai soap Factory, which has a history of nearly a hundred years, is located along the Yangpu Binjiang River, which is known as "the cradle of modern Chinese industry". With the urban transformation and industrial restructuring, these old factories have to be closed and relocated, so a large number of vacant factories and abandoned docks are left behind. White Seven Cafe in Shanghai has also witnessed the transformation of the old industrial base.

The name of the White Seven Cafe in Yangpu Binjiang also comes from an interesting source, a "white" and a "seven". Together, it becomes the word "soap". And "Guben, Fan Pai, Baili, Honeyflower, Yuhua", these names evoke the memories of old Shanghai, are some very familiar brands of soap in Shanghai. The area used by the White Seven Cafe is the former site of the Shanghai soap Factory, so you can see that there are many written signs on the outer wall of the White Seven Cafe, such as pressure hydrolysis building, grille pool, biological turntable pool, air floating pool, sodium hypochlorite pool, observation building and so on. These text signs are the names of the soap factory workshop.

The cafe is decorated with soap-related elements, the main bar is made of parts of soap-making equipment, and circular pipes that used to connect different production pools have been transformed into different space passageways connecting the cafe. Designers skillfully use the geometric pattern of "circle" to preserve the age and industrial style of the site.

Xie Pinghe, who is in charge of the transformation of the Shanghai soap factory, decided to build a museum full of memories to meet the entertainment needs of the people, named "soap Dream Space". The soap Dream Space is divided into five sections, namely, "time and space", "soap building", "dream", "soap art" and "creating soap". Take the White Seven Cafe as the starting point to let tourists enter the new space through the designed "time tunnel". White Seven Cafe is not an ordinary cafe, this is a cafe that can "dream".

* Photo Source: thepaper.cn