In the last decades Shanghai has been going through an explosive process of urbanization. Ever since the city has been allowed to open up to foreign investment but particularly since the Pudong area was established as a Special Economic Zone the value of the surrounding neighborhoods has rapidly increase. The nearby Huangpu District, historical core of Shanghai which includes the old walled city, occupy valuable ground for real estate and the government started a process of negotiating and moving residents in order to demolish the structures to make way for new buildings. In 1990’s large-scale redevelopments began to erase sections of neighborhood in the old city. Shanghai old town’s unique feature is the overlapping and mutual complementarity of architectural forms from different epochs. In particular lilong and shikumen houses, an historical style of housing unique to Shanghai that blends traditional Chinese architecture and Western architecture. This vernacular architecture first appeared in 1860’s coinciding with the French and British concession period. Since their appearance lilong and shikumen have constituted the primary living space for the working class in the inner city of Shanghai. However, in the name of redevelopment and progress sections of neighborhoods are emptied out and painted with gray varnish, while its community is evicted and relocated in the suburbs. Suspended in time and space the neighborhood may remain in transition for several years before the actual demolition or renovation starts. In these hybrid, grey zones is no longer possible to apply binary logic, either spatially or temporally. If in the uncanny another world become visible, the goal of the The Grey Catalogue is to reimagine collectively the present and the future of our cities starting from the small scale, and to question how we deal with the memory of the places, the endangerment of the cultural heritage and the loss of a shared identity. The Grey Catalogue was created with the support of Strategia Fotografia 2024, promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity (DGCC) of the Italian Ministry of Culture.