Jardine Matheson Building

Jardine Matheson Building

The Jardine Matheson Building is a protected cultural heritage site of Shanghai.

The Jardine Matheson Building is located at No. 27 Zhongshan East First Road. Construction began in the 9th year of the Republic of China (1920) and was completed in September of the 15th year (1926). It was invested in by the British firm Jardine Matheson, designed by the British firm Palmer & Turner, and built by the Yuchangtai Construction Company. Covering a land area of 2,100 square meters with a total floor area of 15,976 square meters, the original building had five floors and was 32 meters high, with two additional floors added in 1983. It is a reinforced concrete frame structure building.

The building has a solid structure, with its exterior walls from the ground floor to the sixth floor entirely constructed of granite. The first and second floors feature roughly hewn granite as decoration, making it one of the early examples in Shanghai of using stone for exterior walls. The two additionally built floors are made of aggregate concrete material. The entrance of the building has stone steps, and the main door consists of two bronze-clad doors, with four arched steel windows, each two stories high, on the west side. A 1-meter-wide purple-copper metal plate connects the windows between the ground floor and the second floor. The third floor has a stone balustrade balcony, with four large round stone columns extending from the third to the sixth floor. The bases and tops of the stone columns are square, and each column features a carved stone window frame from the third to the fifth floor, with various carvings around the windows. A pair of large wall sconces flank the main entrance, and there is a carved sheep head ornament on the second floor. The upper part of the fifth floor has a relatively wide eave, and the rooftop features a stone wall over 2 meters high with a flagpole in the center.

The interior decorations are exquisite. The walls and floors of the ground floor are all paved with marble, while the corridors on the upper floors have mosaic flooring, and the offices are fitted with fine wooden strip waxed floors. The building is equipped with a complete set of facilities including water pumps, generators, and steam radiators. The architecture is a typical example of classical style, with strict three-part divisions both horizontally and vertically. The construction quality is excellent, second only to that of the HSBC Building. The building has been managed by the housing authority since February 1955 and currently serves as the office space for the Shanghai Municipal Foreign Trade Bureau and its affiliated specialized companies.

It was designated as a protected cultural heritage site of Shanghai in 1989.