"When I first arrived in 1990, Shanghai was still in a deep slumber-about as exciting as a bowl of Jell-O," says Teng Kun-yan. It was as if time had frozen-the extensive row of western-style buildings along the Bund, the dark green oriental plane trees in the European gardens in front of the western-style houses on Huaihai Road, the streetcars on Nanjing Road slipping along the streets at their own unhurried pace. The city and its pedestrians seemed unconnected to each other.

There, as if in a dream, lay the dusty grey city of Shanghai. Tired of the gaudy life of Taipei, badgered by the media, and unable to spread his artistic wings, Teng decided to hole up in Shanghai to find respite and be alone with his thoughts.

He had a love-hate relationship with Taipei. Tired of being mistreated "simply because of my unusual background," Teng left Taipei.

Teng eschewed agricultural science, his field of study, to work for over a decade under the prominent architect Han Pao-teh. Once he struck out on his own, he caused a stir with his creations the Never Ending Memory Cafe and the Apocalypse Now Beer House. Teng had even been selected as one of the top ten best-dressed men, but his dream of becoming a master architect remained outside of his grasp, because, without a degree or license in architecture, the only work he could get was that passed on by his mentor Han Pao-teh. "In reality, he didn't give me projects; rather he allowed me to 'assist' him in his work. Of course, he gave me many opportunities to help, but you can have all the talent in the world, but if your name is hidden, you remain unknown. With nowhere to demonstrate my abilities, I had no choice but to leave Taiwan," explains Teng Kun-yan.

"At first, I wasn't planning to stay, nor was I entertaining the idea of becoming a designer in Shanghai. I simply wanted time with my books before taking my architecture to a higher level," Teng Kun-yan explains. So he went to Shanghai in the early '90s where he lived in the Seagull Hotel for five years!

Teng arrived back before the Shanghai real estate market had opened up and, because there was no money or fame to be had, nobody had an inkling of what lay ahead for Shanghai. That is what drew Teng to Shanghai. Pointing at the array of modern buildings bristling along the banks of the Suzhou River outside his windows, Teng reminisces, "Back then, none of this even existed." Shanghai has undergone a decade of incredible change.

For ten years, Teng was alone-in Taipei, he worked alone; in Shanghai, he lived alone. He returned to Taipei on occasion to work on public art or do some designing for good friends. Each time he finished, he would hop on a flight back to Shanghai to study Lao-tzu, Chuang-tzu, or the Book of Songs, or ride his bicycle around knocking on doors asking for permission to look around buildings. "There's a warehouse in the Yangpu District with a 100-year old elevator inside of it that was so big you could drive a truck into it. Each beautiful detail on that elevator was a piece of art." Its rich history and culture have left Shanghai with countless picturesque buildings.

In 1997, Teng's talent was once again confirmed when he won first place in a design contest held by the Shanghai Press and Publication Administration. The then 50-something Teng eventually decided to hang his hat in Shanghai after he fell down and broke his leg while looking for a place to live.

After a decade of preparation, Teng jumped back into the thick of things-back into a world totally different from the one he had left. Teng believes that without his ten-year break, his later amazing accomplishments would never have come to pass.

Urban revolutionary

Several of the buildings near the wholesale fruit market next to the Xinzha Bridge spanning Shanghai's Suzhou River are former warehouses each of which is almost 100 years old. The taxi driver could not believe that the place housed an office. This writer alighted from the taxi right in front of warehouse doors, three stories high, with 1933-the year the building was erected-written upon them. The winter was cold, but it protected you from the nose-crinkling stench which arises from the Suzhou River in spring and summer. Eyeing me with suspicion, a fruit market laborer idly pointed to a set of stairs to one side, "Looking for Teng Kun-yan? He'd be on the second floor." It would seem that our friend Teng Kun-yan had already become a liaison for the Taiwanese art community in Shanghai.

"The people here told me that this warehouse had been used for grain storage by that legendary figure of the Bund Du Yue Sheng. That made me like it even more. I am really fond of the warehouse because of all the things that can be done with the stairways." Images from the past of small cargo ships docking along the pier, workers burdened with unwieldy hemp-sacked loads shuffling along the small road, into the doors, and up the stairs, frequented Teng's mind like scenes from a movie.

I ascended the flight of steps to the second floor. The writer A-Cheng had had to sit down and talk for a while to get over the shock brought on by the office "lobby's" 5 1/2 meter high ceiling and 300-square-meter floor. New life was injected into the old structure by the fragile winter sunlight trickling through the skylight and vacillating among the heavy wooden floors, mottled brick walls, and five-meter long marble conference table.

After renting the place, Teng tore up most of the floorboards in the second floor corridor to transform it into a lobby. Then he installed a skylight and replaced ventilation slats with glass windows to create the current imposing, bright lobby. He then dismantled three sets of stairs between the second and third floors and enlarged the one remaining set. Ripping out part of the flooring on the third floor had the effect of merging the second and third floors.

He had more than one hundred truckloads of debris removed, whitewashed the walls, waxed the floors, and installed some inexpensive mining lights. Teng will work from this studio for the next 20 years.

Dr. Chu-joe Hsia, director of the National Taiwan University Graduate Institute of Building and Planning, feels that "In Shanghai, with its urgent penchant for all things new, oddly enough, these cut-rate designing methods have become cutting edge."

Teng does not flaunt imposing architectural words or forms, but he radiates culture-rich and austere, like the black and white clothing he wears. "This is what I want. I call it the mystique of dignity." He believes that China, Shanghai, and he himself share this quality.

Ten years of preparation

Immediately after leaving Han Pao-teh, his mentor of 12 years, Teng's creations Never Ending Memory Cafe and Apocalypse Now sparked a post-modernist revolution in Taipei. Then he cloistered himself in Shanghai for a decade. His movement to save Suzhou River architecture has once again made him an urban revolutionary-this time in Shanghai. Architecture students in the PRC have gone ga-ga over him and made a mecca out of his workshop.

Today, the dozen-odd occupants of the Suzhou River buildings, which including the Sihang Warehouse (the "Alamo" of the Sino-Japanese War), consist of designing, Internet, and advertising companies, as well as galleries and artists. The Shanghai municipal government is now planning to turn seven kilometers of structures along the Suzhou River, originally slated to be demolished to make way for residential buildings, into a center for tourism, culture, and leisure.

Teng, who has a real affinity for water, works next to the Suzhou River and lives in the penthouse of the old Japanese consulate at the mouth of the Huangpu River. An imposing view fills the skyline-from the lovely cultural scene that is the old concession on the west side of the Bund to the clusters of new buildings, like the Oriental Pearl Hotel, sprouting up on the east.

Starting anew away from home at the age of 50, the world has fixed its eyes on born-again twins-Teng Kun-yan and Shanghai. Teng is a man who loves his work. You can still find him engrossed in his work on weekends. If the relationship between Taiwan and the PRC does not undergo any drastic change, Teng foresees Shanghai as the center for his personal development over the next 20 years.

Accustomed to the Huangpu River's night-shattering foghorns, Teng says, "I'm still striving to achieve my dream of becoming a great architect by the time I'm 70. I hope that when I go back to Taiwan someday people in Taiwan will carry me on their shoulders like a returning hero because of my achievements here in Shanghai and they'll give me the opportunity to show them what I've got."