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Jiao Tong campus filled with architectural gems
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DORMITORY No. 1
Renowned Chinese architect Robert Fan designed this modern-style dormitory building in 1930. At the time, it was one of the highest-quality student residences in China.
Covering an area of 4,362 square meters, the U-shaped building had 152 dormitory rooms, each shared by three students and decorated with Western furniture. The bathrooms had hot water and Western toilets. The building is surrounded by grass, flowers, a pine forest and a stream.
The Middle Hall
Completed in 1899, the Middle Hall is the oldest surviving building on the Xujiahui campus of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. It was designed by American missionary John Calvin Ferguson, who was commissioned by a Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) minister to help found the university.
Covering an area of 4,950 square meters, it was built as a three-story brick-and-wood structure in British Victorian style, with a dining hall and chemistry lab on the first floor, classrooms on the second and a dormitory on the third.
To make it more convenient for faculty members to travel from their downtown homes to Nanyang College, as the university was originally known, Ferguson also constructed a road with his own money. This road was later named Route de Ferguson, part of which is today’s Wukang Road.
Ferguson also designed another of the school’s signature buildings, the Upper Hall.
The Engineering Building
This building was designed by famed architect Laszlo Hudec and constructed by Voh Kee Construction Company, Hudec’s trustworthy collaborator on an array of projects, including the Park Hotel.
Built with a large interior yard, the steel-and-concrete lab building has a simple Art Deco façade. The external walls are made with dark brown Taishan bricks.
Edged stone pilasters stretch beyond the walls, emphasizing the building’s vertical lines. The façade resembles one at the True Light Buildings, also designed by Hudec around the same period on the Bund. The cantilevering doorway on the south side forms a thick shadow. The three pointed arches on the north entrance reveal Hudec’s Gothic-style design preferences.
Perched on two sides of the hall are grand staircases dominating most of the space. The corridors are 3 meters wide in places and designed with terrazzo benches along the wall on one side.
The first floor formerly featured a boiler room and laboratories for mechanical, hydraulic, metalwork, material sciences and biology research. Classrooms, drawing rooms, reading rooms, toilets for professors, a darkroom for photography and two lecture halls were all on the second floor.
New Upper Hall
The original Upper Hall, designed by John Calvin Ferguson in 1900, was a Victorian-style building similar to the Middle Hall, but more exquisite in decoration. However, due to foundation problems, the building sank severely so the school built a new Upper Hall on the same site.
The new building was erected in the 1950s, an era when Chinese architectural design was heavily influenced by the principles of “socialist content and nationalist style” from the former Soviet Union.
The building is a steel-and-concrete structure with a classic Western façade and traditional local elements such as ancient Chinese patterns and dougong, Chinese brackets.
General Administration Building
This administration building, formerly known as Yung Wing Hall, as well as the engineering building mentioned above, opened in March 1933 to coincident with the university’s 37th anniversary and an engineering and railway exhibition taking place at the campus.
Designed by famed Chinese architect Zhuang Jun, this Beaux-art-style edifice is simple and modern, but also graced by Chinese elements such as hip roofs and Shanghai-style dormers.
The Main Gate
The school’s original main entrance was a traditional Chinese wooden gateway which was used from 1898 until 1934, when the school’s name changed from Nanyang College to Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
In 1935 the current grand gate, built after the traditional style used by the Chinese government, was erected. It features a large hanging roof, green glass tiles and blue-greenish paintings. The walls are built with red bricks and white cement joints to match the iconic old library nearby.
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