North China Daily News Building Shanghai Simon Fieldhouse

The North China Daily News Building () is a historical

Neo-Renaissance Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th century architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range o ...

-style

office building An office is a space where an organization's employees perform administrative work in order to support and realize objects and goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific dut ...

the Bund The Bund or Waitan (, Shanghainese romanization: ''Nga3thae1'', , ) is a waterfront area and a protected historical district in central Shanghai. The area centers on a section of Zhongshan Road (East Zhongshan Road No.1) within the former Shang ...

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

, China located at No.17,

The Bund The Bund or Waitan (, Shanghainese romanization: ''Nga3thae1'', , ) is a waterfront area and a protected historical district in central Shanghai. The area centers on a section of Zhongshan Road (East Zhongshan Road No.1) within the former Shang ...

. It houses the offices of the

American International Assurance AIA Group Limited, often known as AIA (), is a Hong Kong-based American multinational insurance and finance corporation. It is the largest public listed life insurance and securities group in Asia-Pacific. It offers insurance and financial s ...

(AIA), and is thus often called the AIA Building (). At the time of its opening in 1924, it was the tallest building in Shanghai.

History

The ''

North China Daily News The ''North China Daily News'' (in Chinese: ''Zilin Xibao''), was an English-language newspaper in Shanghai, China, called the most influential foreign newspaper of its time. History The paper was founded as the weekly ''North-China Herald'' ( ...

'' was the first English-language newspaper to be published in

, in 1850. Because the newspaper's founder saw Shanghai as a growing commercial center and founded the paper to support Shanghai's growth, much of its original content was related to shipping news. The paper expanded as Shanghai grew, and moved to the Bund in 1901. In 1921 the paper began construction of this building as its new headquarters, and completed construction in 1924.Shea (2007) The building was designed by architects , which was co-founded by Gordon Morriss, the brother of the newspaper's owner at the time, Henry E. Morriss. From 1927 the building also housed the offices of American Asiatic Underwriters, an insurance agency founded by

Cornelius Vander Starr Cornelius Vander Starr (October 15, 1892 – December 20, 1968), sometimes known as Neil Starr, was an American businessman and founder of C.V. Starr & Co. (later known as Starr Companies) in Shanghai, China, which became AIG. AIG grew from an ...

and the forerunner of the

American International Group American International Group, Inc. (AIG) is an American multinational finance and insurance corporation with operations in more than 80 countries and jurisdictions. , AIG companies employed 49,600 people.https://www.aig.com/content/dam/aig/amer ...

(AIG). The

Japanese Empire The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent forma ...

confiscated the building during its occupation of Shanghai during the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. During that time the building was home to the ''Tairiku Shimpō'' (), a Japanese newspaper. After World War II the North China Daily News returned to the building, and the paper continued to operate until 1951, shortly after the founding of the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. The building was then confiscated and used by the Chinese government as a branch for various government offices at various times. In 1996 the building was restored, and in 1998 it became the Shanghai branch of

AIA Group Limited AIA Group Limited, often known as AIA (), is a Hong Kong-based American multinational insurance and finance corporation. It is the largest public listed life insurance and securities group in Asia-Pacific. It offers insurance and financial s ...

. AIA was a subsidiary of American International Group (AIG), which is a successor company of the American Asiatic Underwriters, who occupied part of the building in the early twentieth century.

Design

The North China Daily News Building is a

reinforced concrete Reinforced concrete (RC), also called reinforced cement concrete (RCC) and ferroconcrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having hig ...

structure with

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

towers, Neoclassical pillars, and

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

relief sculpture. The first seven floors are faced with

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

, the lowest two floors of which are rough hewn. The building originally incorporated the statues of two goddesses, which flanked the marble entrance, but these statues were destroyed during the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...

. The building contains of office space, and lies on a plot of land.

References

Bibliography

* Shea, Marilyn
"The Bund – Picture Guide to Historic Buildings"
The University of Maine. 2007. Retrieved 22 September 2012.

External links

page including historical and contemporary photographs at Chinese-Architecture.info

Collection of high-resolution photographs of historic buildings in Shanghai
{{Shanghai Bund Buildings and structures in Shanghai Landmarks in Shanghai Newspaper headquarters Office buildings completed in 1924 The Bund 1924 establishments in China