Customs House, Shanghai
Encyclopedia
The Bund
The Bund is a waterfront area in central Shanghai, People's Republic of China. The area centres on a section of Zhongshan Road within the former Shanghai International Settlement, which runs along the western bank of the Huangpu River, facing Pudong, in the eastern part of Huangpu District...
, Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
. Built in 1927, the building remains a customs house today. Together with the neighbouring HSBC Building
HSBC Building, Shanghai
The HSBC Building is a six-floor neo-classical building in the Bund area of Shanghai, China. It was the headquarters of the Shanghai branch of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation from 1923 to 1955. The building is situated at number 12, the Bund. It is also known as the Municipal...
, the Customs House is seen as one of the symbols of the Bund and Shanghai.
History
The Shanghai Customs House was first set up in the late 17th century, when the Kangxi EmperorKangxi Emperor
The Kangxi Emperor ; Manchu: elhe taifin hūwangdi ; Mongolian: Энх-Амгалан хаан, 4 May 1654 –20 December 1722) was the fourth emperor of the Qing Dynasty, the first to be born on Chinese soil south of the Pass and the second Qing emperor to rule over China proper, from 1661 to 1722.Kangxi's...
lifted the ban against sea trade
Hai jin
The Hǎi Jìn order was a ban on maritime activities imposed during China's Ming Dynasty and again at the time of the Qing Dynasty. Intended to curb piracy, the ban proved ineffective for that purpose...
after conquering Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
. To facilitate trading along the east coast of China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, the Qing
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
government set up four customs houses in the four coastal provinces of Jiangnan
Jiangnan
Jiangnan or Jiang Nan is a geographic area in China referring to lands immediately to the south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, including the southern part of the Yangtze Delta...
(now split into Jiangsu and Anhui), Zhejiang
Zhejiang
Zhejiang is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. The word Zhejiang was the old name of the Qiantang River, which passes through Hangzhou, the provincial capital...
, Fujian
Fujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
, and Guangdong
Guangdong
Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...
. The name "Jiangnan Customs House" was abbreviated to "Jiang Customs House", or "Jiang Haiguan" in Chinese. The principal customs house, originally located at Lianyungang
Lianyungang
Lianyungang is a prefecture-level city in northeastern Jiangsu province, People's Republic of China. It borders Yancheng to its southeast, Huai'an and Suqian to its south, Xuzhou to its southwest, and the province of Shandong to its north...
was later set up just outside the east gate of the walled city of Shanghai (then a part of Jiangnan Province), by the Huangpu River
Huangpu River
The Huangpu River is a -long river in China flowing through Shanghai...
.
With the development of overseas trade in Shanghai, the location of the customs house became increasingly inconvenient, with foreign merchants preferring to berth their ships further out to sea, near today's Bund
The Bund
The Bund is a waterfront area in central Shanghai, People's Republic of China. The area centres on a section of Zhongshan Road within the former Shanghai International Settlement, which runs along the western bank of the Huangpu River, facing Pudong, in the eastern part of Huangpu District...
. The governor of Shanghai then set up a check point at the south end of the Bund. Upon further insistence by the British consul to move the customs house inside the British concession, a new customs house was built at the present site. This new house is known as the New Customs House, North Customs House, or "Foreign Customs House", whereas the old customs house was known as the "Grand Customs House". In 1853, the rebelling Small Swords Society
Small Swords Society
Small Swords Society was a political and military organisation active in Shanghai, China and neighbouring areas during the Taiping Rebellion....
burnt down the Grand Customs House. In 1860, the Taiping Revolution Army burnt down the rebuilt Grand Customs House. It was decided not to rebuild the Grand Customs House, with the current building becoming the new headquarters.
During the rebellions, the British authority declared the concession to be neutral. They then forced out the Qing
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
officials from the North Customs House, on the grounds that they could not collect customs in neutral territory. After the rebellion, the Qing authority in Shanghai was forced to set up customs authority, first on two gunboats parked across the river in Pudong
Pudong
Pudong |Bank]]") is an area of Shanghai, China, located along the east side of the Huangpu River, across from the historic city center of Shanghai in Puxi. Formerly a little-developed agricultural area linked only by ferries, Pudong has grown rapidly since the 1990s and emerged as China's financial...
, then on the north bank of Suzhou River
Suzhou Creek
Suzhou Creek is a river in China that passes through the Shanghai city centre. It is named after Suzhou, a city in neighbouring Jiangsu province which was the predominant city in this area prior to the rise of Shanghai as a metropolis.One of the principal outlets of Lake Tai, Suzhou Creek has a...
. However, foreign merchant vessels ignored these ineffective customs posts.
In 1854, the British authority obtained the power of customs in the concession. The British, French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, and Americans
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
each nominated one person to form a Foreigners Tax Committee, which operated from the Customs House. Subsequently, the Qing government agreed to appoint a British as an inspector general of the newly formed Chinese Maritime Customs Service
Chinese Maritime Customs Service
The Chinese Maritime Customs Service was a Chinese governmental tax collection agency and information service from its founding in 1854 until its bifurcation in 1949 into services operating in the Republic of China on Taiwan, and in the People's Republic of China...
. In 1857, the Shanghai government spent 6800 taels of silver to rebuild the North Customs House. In 1863, Sir Robert Hart
Sir Robert Hart, 1st Baronet
Sir Robert Hart, 1st Baronet, GCMG , was a British consular official in China, who served as the second Inspector General of China's Imperial Maritime Custom Service from 1863 to 1911.-Early life:...
was appointed to the position of inspector general, a position that he would hold until 1911.
The building as rebuilt in 1857 was a traditional Chinese building in the Yamen
Yamen
A yamen is any local bureaucrat's, or mandarin's, office and residence of the Chinese Empire. The term has been widely used in China for centuries, but appeared in English during the Qing Dynasty....
style. It was fronted with a monumental arch (pailou) and two flag poles. By 1859, this building was becoming outdated. The governor of Shanghai then applied for funding to rebuild it. Robert Hart chose a Gothic
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
design, with a five-storey rectangular clock tower in the centre, and two three-storey wings beside it, surrounding a quadrangle.
This building was again demolished in 1925 to make way for the current building, designed by P & T Architects Limited (Palmer and Turner). The new building was completed on December 19, 1927, and cost 4.3 million taels of silver, twice the budget. The building remains a customs house today.
Layout
The present Customs House occupies an area of 5722 m², with 32680 m² of floor space. The building is in two section: the eastern section is eight storeys tall and faces the Huangpu RiverHuangpu River
The Huangpu River is a -long river in China flowing through Shanghai...
. It is topped by a clock tower, which is eleven storeys or 90 metres tall. The western section is five stories tall, and faces onto Sichuan Road. A reinforced concrete
Reinforced concrete
Reinforced concrete is concrete in which reinforcement bars , reinforcement grids, plates or fibers have been incorporated to strengthen the concrete in tension. It was invented by French gardener Joseph Monier in 1849 and patented in 1867. The term Ferro Concrete refers only to concrete that is...
structure was used. The exterior follows a Greek-revival Neo-Classicist design. The eastern section is entirely surfaced in granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
, as are the first two storeys of the western section, with the upper three storeys faced with brown bricks. The main entrance has four Doric
Doric order
The Doric order was one of the three orders or organizational systems of ancient Greek or classical architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian.-History:...
columns. Eaves are founda bove the first and second storeys, with a larger one above the sixth floor. Large stone columns penetrate from the third to the sixth storey.
Inside the main entrance is the main hall. Marble columns are decorated with gold leaf. At the centre is an oxtagonal dome, with mosaics on the eight sides.
The most famous feature of the Customs House is the clock tower and clock. The clock tower offers views over the entire Bund and Shanghai city centre. It has four faces, each made up of more than 100 pieces of glass, between 0.3 and 1 metre in size. The diameter of each face is 5.3 metres, with 72 automatic lamps. The clock and bell mechanisms are built according to the design of Big Ben
Clock Tower, Palace of Westminster
Big Ben is the nickname for the great bell of the clock at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London, and is generally extended to refer to the clock or the clock tower as well. It is the largest four-faced chiming clock and the third-tallest free-standing clock tower in the world...
at the Palace of Westminster
Palace of Westminster
The Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament or Westminster Palace, is the meeting place of the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom—the House of Lords and the House of Commons...
. The bells were cast by John Taylor Bellfounders
John Taylor Bellfounders
John Taylor & Co, formerly trading as Taylors, Eayre & Smith Ltd and John Taylor Bellfounders Ltd, and commonly known as Taylor's Bell Foundry or simply Taylor's, is the world's largest working bell foundry, located in Loughborough in the United Kingdom.The company manufactures bells for use in...
and the clock mechanism was built by JB Joyce & Co
JB Joyce & Co
JB Joyce & Co, clockmakers, were founded in Shropshire in England. The company claim to be the oldest clock manufacturer in the world, originally established in 1690, and has been part of the Smith of Derby Group since 1965...
in England before they were shipped to Shanghai. It remains to be the largest clock in Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
. During the Cultural Revolution
Cultural Revolution
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution , was a socio-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 through 1976...
, the clock music was changed to The East is Red
The East Is Red
"The East Is Red" is a song that was the de facto anthem of the People's Republic of China during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. The lyrics of the song were attributed to Li Youyuan, a farmer from northern Shaanxi, and the melody was derived from a local folk song...
. The traditional tune (the Westminster Quarters) was restored in the 1980s. In 2003, however, the municipal Communist Party
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
branch ordered the music to be changed once again to The East is Red
The East Is Red
"The East Is Red" is a song that was the de facto anthem of the People's Republic of China during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. The lyrics of the song were attributed to Li Youyuan, a farmer from northern Shaanxi, and the melody was derived from a local folk song...
.