ARCHITECT Tang Yu’en studied the Bibliotheca Zi-Ka-Wei in Xujiahui before designing Shanghai Library in the 1990s.

“I see this as a simplified, Far Eastern version of Europe’s monastic bibliotheca,” she says of the aged edifice in downtown Shanghai. “A wooden railing runs the length of the second story, neatly dividing the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves ... It’s entirely different from traditional Chinese libraries, where threaded ancient books are piled up tier upon tier in camphor bookcases.”

A home for precious books, historical newspapers and an architectural beauty in its own right, the Bibliotheca Zi-Ka-Wei was built by French Jesuits and is celebrating its 170th anniversary this year.

According to the 1933 book “Xuhui Brief Record,” Italian Jesuit Mateo Ricci and his companions started collecting books during their missionary work in China in the late Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). The activities of the Jesuits were eventually brought to a halt in the 18th century, but members of the order returned to China when Shanghai opened its port in 1843.

They set up their headquarters in Zikawei — as Xujiahui was known in Shanghai dialect — in 1847. It was here that they also constructed their library, which helped establish the area as a hub for spreading science and Western culture.

Today, the bibliotheca consists of two surviving structures — a four-story building in the west originally constructed in 1867 as a residence for priests, and a two-story building in the east erected two decades later as storage space for religious texts.

According to the library’s former director, Wang Renfang, it was once considered one of the world’s major information centers — the others being the French National Library and the Vatican Library. Highlights of its collection include a Latin psychological text published in 1515 by John Duns Scotus, a map of China printed in Amsterdam in 1655; and a massive Chinese, French and Latin dictionary in 1853.

“The books here are generally on the topics of philosophy, religion, literature, art, history, geography, law, mathematics and astronomy, but most books are on theology and sinology. It’s fascinating to read about how foreigners saw China and the Chinese centuries ago,’’ Wang says.

The Bibliotheca Zi-Ka-Wei also holds a nearly complete collection of foreign-language newspapers printed in pre-1949 China, including Shanghai’s first English newspaper — the North China Herald, founded in 1850.

The old newspapers offer many interesting details about contemporary Chinese society — including the gathering of warships, the export of silk and cotton; even the advertisements mirrored aspects of Chinese life at that time.

‘Rat in a rice jar’

While its rare books may be the library’s main attraction, architectural buffs will find plenty to admire in the two remaining structures.

The western building faces a small, beautifully laid-out garden and features a gallery room on the first floor. This space regularly hosts historical-themed exhibitions.

A reading room on the second floor is open to scholars, where they can sit at a chestnut-hued desk and, under the light of an old-fashioned banker’s desk lamp, pour over writings from past ages. Boasting one of the country’s richest foreign-language book and document collections, the library has become an invaluable resource for researchers of old Shanghai.

Rows of wooden shelves in the reading room showcase English and French books published between 1800 and 1949, most on sinology, such as “Society in China’’ and “China Family and Society.’’

The historical ambience of the reading room is enhanced by two lifelike carvings of St Ignatius on the wall — one is made from clay and the other from wood. Inscriptions at the bottom of the works indicate that they were done by Jean Ferrere, one of the founders of the Tousewan Orphanage, who came to Shanghai in 1847.

The reading room faces a generously proportioned platform adorned with pine wood beams. The platform leads visitors to the cream-colored eastern building, which offers a grand view of the old book collection.

Stacks of Western books are located in a Gothic-style room, like something out of Harry Potter’s Hogwarts, on the second floor. The design of the bookshelves that impressed architect Tang is based on a design used in the Vatican Library.

Its Chinese counterpart, showcasing traditional Chinese thread-bound books, is on the first floor of the same building. In this Chinese-style room, the wooden railing is replaced with bamboo ladders with two hooks that can be affixed to the top of the shelves. The Chinese stacks were originally divided throughout six rooms, each storing ancient records of Shanghai on 3.8-meter-high book shelves.

“I was like a rat in a rice jar while working in the library from 1980 to 1996,” recalls local historian Zhang Wei from Shanghai Library, whose job then was helping readers locate books from the stacks.

“I often asked my colleagues to lock me inside the stacks of the eastern building during lunchtime so I could read those precious old books. After work, I stayed late in the bibliotheca, took notes of my daytime reading and then bicycled home at midnight. Every Spring Festival, I volunteered to be on duty just for some nice quiet reading time,” says Zhang.

“Day after day like this, I’ve grown from an energetic young man into grey-haired middle-aged. I became so familiar with the collection that I could quickly find a book without checking the reference cards. Those 17 years in Bibliotheca Zi-Ka-Wei formed a solid foundation for my research and books about Xujiahui and the Tousewan Orphanage,” the historian says.

Passage of time

The Xujiahui library was closed in the early 1990s to make way for the construction of Shanghai’s first Metro line. Calls for preservation came during that same decade from famous scholars like writer Ba Jin and mathematician Su Buqing when Metro construction began causing cracks in the walls from ground subsidence.

The bibliotheca reopened to the public in 2003 after a restoration, offering free-of-charge access to a sea of rare books and historic publications. In recent years, the bibliotheca has offered digital versions of North China Daily News and North China Herald for the convenience of readers and researchers.

Today pedestrians en route to Xujiahui’s St Ignatius Cathedral from the Orient Shopping Center inevitably pass through an arched stone-paved corridor that looks like ancient book shelves. In fact, the corridor was originally one of the six rooms of the Chinese stacks in the eastern building. This was part of the solution to preserve the building during Metro construction.

“I traveled a lot and have visited many libraries and bibliothecas around the world. The old ways of storing books tell us how we’ve come to us today. Bibliotheca Zi-Ka-Wei is truly a treasure,” says architect Tang.