The extraordinary path of Ben Wood, the American architect whose bold redesign of Shanghai’s iconic Xintiandi—a lively “new heaven and earth” that expertly preserved historic shikumen brick townhouses while infusing them with contemporary cultural and entertainment vitality—redefined urban heritage preservation in China, starting in the late 1990s. A former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot who flew Phantom jets, civil engineer, restaurateur, contractor, and late-blooming architect (he earned his Master’s degree in architecture from MIT in 1984, at age 33), Wood spent a formative decade working under the legendary Benjamin Thompson, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
These experiences culminated in a life-changing invitation to Shanghai in 1998, where—against the prevailing push for demolition—Wood persuaded developers and officials to save and reimagine decaying shikumen lanes into a commercially thriving yet culturally authentic district near the historic French Concession. His approach not only revitalized Shanghai’s architectural landscape but also established a global model for economically viable, respectful heritage projects.
We sat down with Wood for an extended three-part interview informed by, Into the Dragon’s Mouth—Stories from an American Architect Who Changed China.
Ken Rhee: How did you get into architecture, and what were your key works in the U.S. prior to coming to China?
Ben Wood: I was trained as a civil engineer, got a Master’s degree. During the Vietnam War, I was enrolled in law school, got drafted into the army, lost my deferment, and went off to Europe to fly. It was the most sophisticated aircraft in the world, a Phantom jet. I got out of the Air Force and decided I wanted to teach mountaineering. While in the Air Force, I had spent a lot of time in the Alps. I learned how to rock climb, ice climb. And I went out to a small town in Colorado. The town needed a building inspector, and I was the only one in town qualified, because I was a civil engineer. So, I became a building inspector.
And then I couldn’t make a living teaching people to rock climb, because I couldn’t find enough people that wanted to learn. So, I started building houses, and then people would bring me plans. They would buy a house plan from a magazine, like a ranch style with an attached garage. And I said, I can do better than that. So, I started to design houses.
The only architect in town knocked on my door one day, and he said, “You’re taking away all my work. And you’re not a licensed architect.” He said, “You should go back to school.” And, I did. Ended up at MIT, in architecture. Worked for a famous architect for 10 years.
Rhee: And what was his name?
Wood: Benjamin Thompson.
Rhee: And Benjamin Thompson, he was based in Boston?
Wood: Yes, Cambridge, Massachusetts. We could look across from our office and see Harvard Square.
Rhee: Benjamin Thompson is famous for what?
Wood: He’s famous for Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market. He brought back people to downtown Boston. I ended up playing tennis in a tennis club with a guy one day. It turned out he owned the Chicago Bears. and he said, “What do you do?” And I said, “I am an architect.” He said, “I need an architect for my stadium.” I said, “I’ve never done one.” He said, “That’s exactly the person I want. I want someone who’s never done one, and we can learn how to do it together. So, we’re gonna travel the world and see all the best stadiums in the world. You and I are gonna come back.”
We opened the Chicago Bears’ stadium, and it was named one of the best buildings of the year by the New York Times. The stadium was up in 2003. I also got a call from a Hong Kong developer who said he had seen some of my work in Miami. I did a pedestrian street as famous as Xintiandi for people in Florida. That is Lincoln Road.
He invited me to come to Shanghai. His previous master planner had told him to tear all the buildings down. They said, “We can put up something that sort of looks like it used to, but much bigger and much higher. We put a roof on it, it’ll look like the old building, except it’ll be a mall.” I said, “I’m sorry, sir, but there’s not a shopping mall in the world that has anything I need that I can’t just go to the local store and buy.”
So, the most important thing about a place like Xintiandi is not the architect. It’s the people that choose to invest their life savings in a business. And so, you take a typical project like Xintiandi. It might cost $200 million, but the investment by the tenants, the operators, far exceeds $200 million, and it also includes their entire life. So, you have a responsibility.
Rhee: When did you first come to Shanghai?
Wood: May of ’98.
Rhee: Can you describe the neighborhood which later became Xintiandi? What were the conditions of the neighborhood?
Wood: The developer Vincent Lo owned a hotel near the Communist Youth League’s headquarters. It was about 15, 20 blocks from Xintiandi. The morning that I arrived in Shanghai, he said, “I’ll send a car for you.” I said, “No, I’ll walk.” And I had a map. I could smell the place before I got there. And when I got there, to the site of Xintiandi, I got there early enough in the morning to see them carry out the night soil, buckets of human feces. And for every shikumen, which is a three-bay building and three stories high, there were anywhere from 6 to 10 families living in one house, sharing one kitchen, no bathroom. The only water they had was a cold water tap outside. If they wanted to take a bath, they had to show up in their pajamas and sort of sponge themselves. And by any standard in the world, it was a slum. It was a slum for poor people. And it’s no wonder that the government thought we were going to tear it down.
Rhee: What made you decide to preserve the historical architectural style of the buildings?
Wood: Well, in the course of serving in the air force, I had traveled all over Europe. I was stationed in Europe. I had been to half the hill towns and northern Italy, and every small village in Austria, Switzerland, and Bavaria. Walked the streets of Paris. And when I saw the buildings, I said, I’ve seen these buildings somewhere before. It was in France, across the river from the Eiffel Tower, and these buildings are some of the most expensive places to live in all of Paris. I mean, who can live in a three-story building? In this incredibly great city like Paris, I said, this is what you got. You got three-story buildings in the middle of a city of 16 million people, and you’re going to tear them down? I mean, you gotta be out of your mind. So, I convinced my developer, and after sixty-something, almost a hundred meetings, with the local Luwan District, I was able to convince them that saving the buildings was not only economically viable, it was a cultural imperative.
These buildings were designed by French architects, but they were designed to have courtyards that accommodated Chinese culture. These things are invaluable. It took one hundred meetings to convince the government. But we did. The rest is history.
Part II: Betting on the Street: How Ben Wood Took the Risks That Made Shanghai’s Xintiandi Work
Part III: The Humanity of Architecture: Ben Wood on Designing Cities for People, Not Icons
ULI tour and case studies:
