Former Site of Shanghai Municipal Council

The plot surrounded by Hankou Road, Middle Jiangxi Road, Fuzhou Road and Middle Henan Road in the central district of Shanghai is roughly a square, with an area of about two hectares. It used to be the seat of the Shanghai Municipal Government, and before that, it was the office building of the Municipal Council of the Shanghai International Settlement.

With the economic development of the International Settlement, the population grew, the area expanded, and the Municipal Council also had more and more power, and the growing bodies were increasingly complete and expanded, thus the original office space was no longer big enough for use.

In 1913, the plan and architectural design of the new building were sent to the UK to be reviewed by the Royal Institute of British Architects, and was revised for several times after that. In 1914, just when the construction was about to start, World War I broke out, and it was forced to terminate.

It was not until 1918 after the war did the construction restart. On November 16, 1922, the building was officially put into service.

The building plan of the Shanghai Municipal Council building is in the shape of a small square within a bigger one. The main facade is on Hankou Road facing northeast, and the side facade are facing Jiangxi Road and Fuzhou Road. The four-storeyed building is reinforced concrete structure of neoclassical style, with most of the doors and windows made of stones and the exterior walls veneered with processed stones. The building seems just like a castle of stone form outside.

The main entrances are designed on Hankou Road and its two ends. The northeast entrance at the corner of Hankou Road and Jiangxi Road is the major entrance to the building, with the fan-shaped porch supported by twin Doric columns of granite. Cars can drive directly into the porch. Inside the door, there is a spacious hall, where marble stairs are designed on the left and right, and the walls are extravagantly decorated with marble. The porch top is a terrace. The office of the managing director of the Municipal Council and the board room are on the second floor above the entrance. Each floor has a very wide and long corridor with offices on either side. The offices under the Municipal Council are all in the building.

On December 7,1941, the Pacific War broke out. The next day, Shanghai Municipal Council was actually under the control of the Japanese army. At the end of 1943, the puppet Shanghai Special Municipal Government moved into the building. After the victory of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in 1945, it became the Shanghai Municipal Government of the Nationalist Government.

From 1949 to 1956, this place was the station of the Shanghai Municipal People's Government.