The former German trading house building in Hankou

The former German trading house building in Hankou

The former German trading house building in Hankou is a municipal cultural heritage site in Wuhan.

The former German trading house building in Hankou is located at No. 2 Yiyuan Road, Jiang’an District, and was built between ? and 1908. It is a municipal cultural heritage site.

In October 1926, the Northern Expeditionary Army captured the three towns of Wuhan, making the city the center of the Great Revolution. Subsequently, the Nationalist Government relocated from Guangzhou to Wuhan, and Borodin, an international figure and chief advisor to the Nationalist Government, came to Hankou and stayed in a three-story Western-style house at the intersection of Yiyuan Road—the former German trading house building in Hankou—which people later commonly referred to as “Borodin’s Residence.”

The residence has three floors, plus a mezzanine that makes it appear to have four, with a reinforced concrete structure and European architectural style. The front third and fourth floors project outward, featuring six colonnades, giving it a very majestic and elegant appearance. The wall decorations are refined, the mezzanine windows are semicircular, while most of the first, second, and third-floor windows are rectangular, with a few shaped like doorways. The roof has two towers.

The Melchers Trading House was a German merchant bank, then located within the German Concession. Its front steps numbered as many as 16, and the interior had very high ceilings. The first floor at the time housed the editorial office of The National Forum, edited by American journalists William and Reinhardt Prohme, while Borodin lived on the upper floors. Borodin had exceptional oratory skills but had injured his left arm. The renowned American journalist Anna Louise Strong recalled: “For most of the weeks I spent in Hankou, Borodin was more or less ill—suffering from an old fever (malaria) contracted during four years in China’s tropical regions—and he also endured the pain of a disabled arm. He often dragged himself out of bed between bouts of fever to attend meetings and receive visitors, and only when seriously ill was he forced to stay in bed.”

At Borodin’s Residence, meetings were held day and night without pause. Soong Ching-ling and Chen Duxiu often came here.