The Sincere Company Building

The Sincere Company Building

The Sincere Company Building is a protected cultural heritage site of Shanghai.

The Sincere Company Building

Located at 648–700 East Nanjing Road, it was initiated by overseas Chinese such as Ma Yingbiao and completed in the 6th year of the Republic of China (1917), covering an area of over 7,000 square meters with a total construction area of 30,184 square meters. The building has seven floors and is over 30 meters high. It was designed by Dehe Foreign Firm and constructed by Weiqingji Construction Company. The structure features a reinforced concrete frame.

Most of the building is used as a shopping mall, with part serving as the East Asia Hotel. Floors six and seven are home to the Sincere Amusement Park, and there is a rooftop garden on the roof. The building also contains a theater. After the liberation, in order to facilitate pedestrian flow along East Nanjing Road, the front section of the ground floor was modified with an arcade-style exterior corridor, featuring arched or flat vaulted openings leading to the street. The facade of the building adopts a horizontal treatment, with the second and third floors featuring Ionic columns supporting an arched broken pediment. The balconies are adorned with long rows of cast iron floral-pattern railings. The upper part has a three-story tower, each supported by Tuscan columns, with a circular clock face installed below the towers. The building’s architectural style is predominantly Renaissance eclectic, with some Baroque decorations. It features large arched windows on East Nanjing Road to highlight the entrance below. The image of the tower is one of the iconic landmarks of the Nanjing Road commercial district.

The company opened on October 20, 1917, and was the first large department store operated by Chinese in Shanghai to offer a wide range of global goods. It is the earliest-established among the “Four Great Companies” on Nanjing Road and is now occupied by Shanghai Fashion Company, East Asia Hotel, and Huangpu District Cultural Center, among others. In 1989, it was designated as a protected cultural heritage site of Shanghai.