A museum in Xintiandi North Block that preserves and interprets a shikumen lane house in its residential configuration from the 1920s and 1930s — the furniture, kitchenware, family photographs, and daily objects of a middle-class Shanghai family. The Shikumen was the characteristic residential form of pre-1949 Shanghai: a lane house entered through a stone gate, combining Western architectural influences with Chinese courtyard house traditions.
The museum provides context for understanding the lane house architecture that surrounds it — what these buildings were for and how they functioned as housing before the restaurants moved in. Admission is charged separately from Xintiandi entry. Open daily; the guided tours are worth taking if offered in English.