A 1928–1936 housing development in the southern Jing'an/northern French Concession area, Jing'an Villa consists of 48 shikumen row houses organized around a series of interconnected lanes. The complex is one of the best-preserved examples of large-scale shikumen housing in Shanghai — still entirely residential, not converted for commercial use.
The lanes are open to the public as public space; visitors can walk through and observe the daily life of residents in a continuous 1930s lane house environment. The entry gates on Yuyuan Road and Xinzha Road lead into the central lane system. The scale of the development — more than 40 houses in a connected sequence — gives a sense of the density and organization of pre-war Shanghai mass housing.