Directory_and_Chronicle_1923 — Page 767

SHANGHAI

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a hundred years. The present church was built in 1851. To this mission is attached a museum of natural history, etc., and an astronomical and meteorological Observatory. In connection with the latter there is a time-ball on the French Bund. Under the direction of this institution, a complete system of meteorological observations, embracing the whole of the China Seas, is carried out. The Shanghai Club occupies a large and elaborate building at one end of the English Bund. original structure cost £42,000, and at that is said to have ruined three contractors. It was opened in 1864 and passed through a varied and peculiar history, and finally, having in recent years been found too small for its membership, new and im- pusing premises were erected on the same site and opened in 1911. On October 22nd, 1904, the foundation of a new German Club was laid by Prince Adelbert of Prussia, to replace the old Club Concordia. The new building is a large edifice, with some pretension to architectural display in German Renaissance style. It was closed when China joined the Allies. The present buildings of the British Consulate and Supreme Court, at the other end of the Bund, were opened in 1872. Near them is a fine Masonic Hall, recently partially re-built. Amongst the other conspicuous buildings may be men- tioned those occupied by the Russo-Asiatic Bank, the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China, the Yokohama Specie Bank, Jardine, Matheson & Co., the Glen Line, the North China Daily News, the Eastern Extension and Great Northern Telegraph Companies, the Palace Hotel, Astor House Hotel, the offices of the Chinese Mutual Life Insurance Company, Ltd., and the Union and McBain Buildings. A large scheme for building offices and residential flats on the Nanking Road between Szechuan and Kiangse Roads was put in hand by the late Mr. E. I. Ezra. The scheme includes the laying out of a new thoroughfare, the surrender of land at the narrowest portion of Nanking Road and the erection of five blocks of buildings. The Lyceum Theatre, situate in Museum Road, is a fair building seating 700 persons, opened in January, 1874, and extensively altered and improved during 1901 and again in 1906. A new Custom-house was completed in 1893 on the site of the old building on the Bund. It is in the Tudor style, of red brick with facings of green Ningpo stone, and has high pitched roofs covered with red French tiles. The buildings have a frontage on the Bund of 135 feet, and on the Hankow Road of 155 feet. In the centre of the main building a clock tower, supplied with a four-faced clock striking the Westminster chimes, rises to a height of 110 feet, and divides the structure into two wings. The late Mr. John Chambers was the architect, and the building adds an imposing feature to the Bund. Another fine building is the Central Police Station in Foochow Road, large and spacious, of red brick with stone dressings, but lacking frontage and surrounding space to set it off to full advantage. The new Town Hall and Public Mar- kets were completed in 1899, and form the first block of buildings erected by public funds for public use. They occupy a prominent site, which is bounded by four roads the principal front being upon the Nanking Road, after the Bund the main thorough fare of the Settlement. The plan divides the block into two portions, that facing Nanking Road being for use by the European community as a Town Hall and Market, and the portion in the rear as a Chinese Market. This latter is an airy open building 156 feet by 140 feet, two storeys high, constructed entirely of iron and steel with con- crete floors and a roof glazed in such a manner as to admit the north light only.

A four-way staircase connects the two floors and is surmounted by an octagonal dome 40 feet in diameter. The front building is of red brick with stone dressings. The lower floor consists of the European market, 156 feet by 80 feet, and an arcade, 156 feet by 45 feet, employed for the same purpose. A special and striking feature of the building is the handsome staircase entered from Nanking Road and leading to the Town Hall on the first floor. The walls and arches of this staircase are finished in clean red brick- work with stone dressings, the steps being of concrete with stone handrails and ballus- ters, and encaustic tile floors to halls and landings. The Town Hall is also used by the Shanghai Volunteers for drill purposes. It presents an imposing appearance, being 156 feet long, 80 wide, and 26 feet high to the tiebeams of the roof, a massively timbered gallery crossing one end. The floor is of teak laid on steel joists and concrete. The windows are of cathedral glass and the joinery and dado in this room are of polished teak. Adjoining this Hall are other large rooms used for public meetings, a Volunteers' Club and other purposes. The buildings are lighted throughout by incandes. cent electric lights, the Town Hall having six 300 candle-power incandescent lamps besides the numerous side lights. The whole of the buildings form an effective group, although the narrowness of the streets on the East and West sides considerably detracts from the possibility of obtaining a good view of the block. They took about eighteen months to erect and were built from the designs and under the superinten-

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