French Navy Barracks

French Navy Barracks

The French Navy Barracks is a cultural relic protection unit of Chongqing Municipality.

The French Navy Barracks is located at No. 142 Qiantai Lane, Danzishi, Nan’an District, built in the year 1902.

The French Navy Barracks is located at No. 142 Qiantai Lane, Danzishi, Nan’an District, Chongqing. Built in 1902, it sits on Nanbin Road along the “Chongqing Bund.” Its architectural style is a seamless fusion of Chinese and Western elements, with orderly wooden floors that have endured over time, grey bricks, old tiles, and inscribed plaques—history and culture are richly preserved here.

In 1876, the Sino-British Chefoo Convention was signed. On March 1, 1891, the Chongqing Customs was officially established, with British national Hobson appointed as the first Commissioner of Chongqing Customs and Zhang Huakui of ChuanDong Dao serving as the Customs Supervisor. From then on, history marked the opening of Chongqing as a treaty port. Through negotiations with the Qing government, the French government set up a consulate in Chongqing in March 1896, appointing former Vice-Consul in Hankou, Haas, as the first French Consul in Chongqing. The consulate was initially located at Erxian’an within the city and later moved to Consulate Lane. It had jurisdiction over affairs in Sichuan, Guizhou, Gansu, Xinjiang, Qinghai, and Tibet. In 1902, French naval officer Huerste led a survey team aboard a French warship and established the French Navy Barracks on the southern bank of Chongqing, commonly referred to as the Audin Barracks.

The main gate of the Chongqing French Navy Barracks is a classical building with a traditional Chinese paifang (memorial archway) design and a double-eaved roof. Originally, the top was not the current steeple resembling a Tibetan Buddhist pagoda, but rather a spread-winged eagle, flanked by a pair of Chinese stone lions.

To the right inside the entrance is a single-story building, with a drill ground in the courtyard. The other three sides consist of two-story Western-style buildings. The main building features a corridor-style structure, with the second floor constructed of brick and wood, covering a construction area of 566 square meters. The rear building has an outer corridor structure, with square brick pillars at the front of the first floor, supported by cross-channel steel and flat iron, topped with a wooden platform to form upper and lower outer corridors. One end has an iron-framed wooden staircase leading to the second floor. All four floors are of reinforced concrete structure, with each level of the main façade featuring large-span cement-poured verandas. An iron staircase leads to the top, with the rooftop floor covering an area of 988 square meters.

In 2000, the French Navy Barracks was designated by the Chongqing Municipal People’s Government as part of the first batch of municipal-level cultural relic protection units.