The Qin Family Ancestral Hall

The Qin Family Ancestral Hall

The Qin Family Ancestral Hall is located on Maya Street by the western shore of Moon Lake in Ningbo. It boasts exquisite craftsmanship and ingenious design. Constructed between 1923 and 1925, it was built by members of the Qin family—Qin Jifan, Qin Jihan, and Qin Jihao—to honor their lineage descending from Qin Jun’an, at a cost of over 200,000 silver dollars at the time. From the year after its completion until 1949, the Qin descendants, as a prominent family in Ningbo, held annual ancestral worship ceremonies here.

The hall is laid out along a north-south central axis, consisting of a screen wall, entrance hall, theater stage, main hall, rear hall, and left and right wing rooms, forming a grand wooden architectural complex. The floor plan is rectangular, covering a construction area of 2,165 square meters. The theater stage is the most ornate part of the entire structure, with a floor area of 30.25 square meters, a width of 6.1 meters, and a depth of 5.9 meters. Its caisson ceiling is the most ingenious feature, with 16 geometric curves formed by brackets, flower panels, and rafter ends spiraling upward to converge at the dome, topped with a “bright mirror” in the center. Looking up, one feels as if entering a marvelous realm.

The layout, architectural design, and decoration of the Qin Family Ancestral Hall all follow traditional Jiangnan construction styles. The building integrates various folk crafts such as wood carving, brick carving, stone carving, gilding, and lacquerwork, showcasing a distinctive Ningbo local style. The carved patterns include 140 intricate and splendid designs depicting scenes of children at play, fishermen and woodcutters, stories from "The Legend of Yue Fei" and "Romance of the Three Kingdoms," as well as auspicious motifs like dragons and phoenixes, and magpies on plum blossoms. These carvings enhance the building’s artistic value, with themes and forms rich in meaning and symbolism, embodying people's emotions and aspirations, thus giving the art enduring vitality.

The swallowtail roof caisson of the theater stage in the Qin Family Ancestral Hall is renowned among experts as the finest in eastern Zhejiang for its exceptional craftsmanship.

The unique Zhu Jin wood carving is a traditional craft with a long history in Ningbo, and the carvings in the Qin Family Ancestral Hall are among its finest representations. Beams, columns, spandrels, corbels, and railing seats mostly feature relief or openwork carving techniques, enhanced with line engraving and raised surfaces, coated with thick lacquer, and gilded with gold leaf to achieve a resplendent effect.

The brick carvings of the Qin Family Ancestral Hall are also distinctive, with various brick-carved figures and auspicious patterns embedded in the screen wall, decorative walls, and lattice windows. The sculptures are vividly lifelike, with delicate and smooth carving techniques, showcasing a unique charm.

Ningbo is an industrial and commercial city, and the Ningbo business community in modern times has made significant contributions to and held a unique position in China’s commercial development. Qin Jun’an, a representative figure of the Qin clan and the founder of the Qin Family Ancestral Hall, is one of the notable personalities. While engaging in commerce, the Ningbo business community was also influenced by traditional Confucian values. Therefore, after achieving success in business, they often returned to their hometowns with substantial savings to build ancestral halls, temples, academies, schools, bridges, roads, and more. This reflects their cultural tradition of balancing Confucian ideals with commercial pursuits.

On June 25, 2001, the Qin Family Ancestral Hall, as a modern architectural site, was approved by the State Council to be included in the fifth batch of Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level, and was incorporated into the Tianyi Pavilion heritage listing.

Yu Lake Subdistrict: Established in 1992, Yu Lake Subdistrict in Haishu District is located in the city center of Ningbo. It stretches from Jiefang Road in the east to Changchun Road in the west, neighbors the five-star Nanyuan Hotel to the south, and borders Zhongshan Road to the north. It was formed by merging the former Xianxue, Huxi, and Cangqiao subdistricts. The area covers 2.07 square kilometers, with 16,492 resident households and a population of 41,775, organized into seven community committees. The district boasts a long history and rich cultural heritage, including the "Tianyi Pavilion," Asia’s oldest private library known as the "Southern Book City," and the ancient Buddhist sanctuary—Jushilin. This... More details about Yu Lake Subdistrict ++