Former Site of Qiming Girls' School

Former Site of Qiming Girls' School

The former site of Qiming Girls' School is a protected cultural heritage site of Shanghai.

The former site of Qiming Girls' School is located at No. 100 Tianyaoqiao Road, within the campus of the current Shanghai No. 4 Middle School (formerly Qiming Girls' School), and was built in 1917. The Xujiahui Notre Dame Convent was established in the early 20th century and, along with the then Chongde Girls' School, belonged to the Catholic Salvation Society. The two schools shared virtually identical educational missions, curricula, and teaching content, except that Chongde Girls' School only admitted female students from within the convent, whereas Qiming Girls' School admitted laywomen. At the time, both Qiming and Chongde Girls' Schools were supervised by the Mother Superior of the Convent, with day-to-day affairs managed by Chinese nuns. All principals of the schools were foreign nuns until 1937, when Chinese nun Zhou Cui became the principal of Qiming Girls' School.

In 1951, Qiming Girls' School was taken over by the Shanghai Municipal People's Government and merged with Xuhui Girls' Middle School, becoming Huiming Girls' Middle School. In December 1952, it was renamed as the current Shanghai No. 4 Girls' Middle School. Like all girls' schools at the start of the Cultural Revolution, it began admitting male students. It is now a full-time comprehensive secondary school. — Shanghai No. 4 Middle School.

The existing building is the new schoolhouse completed in 1917, designed in the French Renaissance architectural style. It is a three-story brick-concrete structure. The building has a clear central axis, with a symmetrical main façade composed of three vertical sections and five horizontal ones, extending from the center to both sides to dominate the campus space. Both sides and the center feature triangular gables, the origins of which can be traced back to the compositional paradigms of Western classical architecture. The main entrance on the south façade consists of three bays that form a slightly protruding gable wall, flanked by open arcades on the ground floor that echo the circular fountain in front, enhancing the sense of a central courtyard.