Shanghai General Post Office

Shanghai General Post Office

The Shanghai General Post Office is a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

The Shanghai General Post Office is located at the north end of Sichuan Road Bridge in Shanghai, with the address being 276 North Sichuan Road, Hongkou District. The building was constructed in 1924 at a cost of 3.2 million silver dollars. It was designed by the renowned British firm Stewardson & Spence at the time, and built by the well-known local Yu Hongji Construction Company. The building features a post office hall known as the “Far East’s No. 1 Hall,” which is majestic in scale and now serves as the Postal Museum.

The overall architectural style of the building is Eclecticism, which was popular in European and American countries from the first half of the 19th century to the early 20th century. The main structure references British classical architecture and incorporates large Roman Corinthian columns and a Baroque-style clock tower. The main façade of the building — the south and east sides, as well as the northeast corner — is adorned with 19 tall Roman Corinthian columns, each reaching several dozen meters in height.

There are two sets of different statues on either side of the tower, which serve as one of the iconic symbols of the General Post Office. The eastern set features figures holding a locomotive, an airplane, and a communication cable, symbolizing transportation and communication. The southern set depicts figures from Greek mythology — the central figure is Hermes, known as the god of communication or commerce, flanked by Eros, the god of love, and Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, representing the postal service as a bond that connects human emotions. However, the original statues were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. Fortunately, before their destruction, a fine arts student secretly made plaster molds of them. After the Cultural Revolution, these molds were used to recast exact replicas in bronze, which are the statues still standing on either side of the tower today.

The main façade is finished with fine-grained pebble-dashed stucco, while the north wall is constructed with classic machine-made red bricks, giving the entire building a strong British character.

Further Reading:

· Fourth Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units