Text Copied from Plague:

St. John’s Collge. Masonry structure. Integration of Chinese and Western style. Tao-Fen Building (S.J.J Schereschewsky Hall): Designed by Atkinson & Dallas, Civil Engineers and Architects. Built in 1894. Adminstration Building (The No. 3 Building): Built in 1898. Science Building (Ge-Zhi Building): Designed by Atkinson & Dallas, Civil Engineers and Architects. Built in 1899. Dormitory Building (Yan Yongjing Hall): Built in 1904. Dormitory Building (Arthur Mann Hall): Designed by ALgar & Co. Architects. Built i 1909. Dong-Feng Building (John Seaman Hall): Built in 1924.

Text with kind permission from www.Hudec.sh

Yan Xi Tang, known, today, as the Catholic Country Church in the western suburbs of Shanghai, was previously known as the Chapel of the Westerners Cemetery on Rubicon Road Ma Xiangbo and other famous Chinese educators and Catholic patriots raised funds to complete the Church in 1925. The two-storey reinforced concrete structure has a building area of 239 square meters. The building’s address is now on Hami Road near the 6th Gate No.1115,.
The church imitates the structure of Byzantine architecture, emphasizing basic characteristics such as vaults, arches and domes and walls coated in rough textured cement. Sitting upon a square base is a round dome made of steel and concrete. With four clustered piers on the four corners supporting the pendentive and the dome, the plan forms a Latin Cross. Light cast through the window apertures on the bottom of the dome gives the illusion of the huge dome suspended in the air. The ground and the second floors are paved with colourful terrazzo tiles. Doors, arches and lancet windows are of Gothic style. In the north of the church, along with a chapel, stands a Romanesque clock tower with Gothic lancet windows. The 4.96 square-meter courtyard of the church was used primarily as a cemetery and mortuary. Entering from an underground passage, one could hold a memorial ceremony in the church. 4,000 square meters of the church grounds was transformed into the Xin Jing High school in 1968, while the remainder was employed as a nursery for baby animals of the Shanghai Zoo from 1974, until recently.
Radically different from Hudec’s more traditional structures in Shanghai, this Byzantine church shows Hudec’s accurate grasp of different architectural styles. Hungary had once been populated by the seven tribes of “Magyars” coming from the East, carrying features of Eastern culture. There are still numerous Byzantine architectural style buildings in Hungary, once the centre of European Gothic and Romanticism.

“Ruins? Amazing! I’d love to see it!” I exclaimed.

Kylie continued with excitement, “Yes, I know you’re interested, but we got to be quick as I think it might be torn down soon.”

“Please bring me down there next week.” I replied.

I became so restless for the next 6 days but at the same time, I doubted if that place is just one of those many vulgar looking “Euro-Style” houses built in the suburbs during the 1990s.

We met the following week, a hot summer afternoon and walked down to a lane off Changning Road. After a few minutes, Kylie stopped by a gate and pointed to the ruins behind it, “Here we are!”

The empty land that surrounds the ruins is now enclosed by a high wall but fortunately, we were still able to peep through the rusty gate to take a few shots of the ruins.

After looking at the ruins carefully for a while, I agreed with Kylie that it is a building built during the pre-liberation period. Both of us wanted to know more about it thus we walked along the wall in search of the guardhouse.

Our attempts to beg those guards to enter the enclosed land failed. But I still managed to chit chat with them a bit and learned that this piece of land is now owned by a foreign investor and that it’ll be developed soon.

Alas, property developers have no love for heritage, given that the real estate business in Shanghai is a piece of big and delicious cake.

We left the place in despair but my curiosity of this mysterious building has been haunting me since then and I was determined to find out the story behind it.

My quest begins. I asked many professors, architects and old Shanghailanders I know of, but I got the same answer, “ I’m sorry, I know nothing about it.”

A late dinner with a friend and our chat about buying a few copies of “The Last Look” as souvenirs back home recalled me another person who might know the answer: TESS JOHNSTON!

Her prompt reply within 9 hours to my email enquiry was the same like all others, “No, I don’t know about it and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before.”

However, she invited me to check her old maps and directories at her Art Deco apartment which houses a collection of interesting books and information that every Shanghai heritage scholar dreams of.

Tess greeted me with a glass of cold red drink and then handed me 2 thick directories dating back to the 1930s-40s. One contains a comprehensive series of Shanghai maps while the other directory just contains plain text of street names and residents who lived on the roads.

Then I showed her the pictures of the building from my laptop and she immediately said, “No, I’m 100% sure this isn’t a church building. Hmm…A Spanish Colonial revival style building……a style common in those days. I bet it might have been a school or a hospital. Look at the tower, it doesn’t look like a bell tower of a church!”

The research, with the kind help of Tess, took hours and reminded me of Robert Langdon breaking the Da Vinci Codes.

First, with the help of Google Earth, we tracked down the exact location of the ruins on the modern map and then corresponded with the old map directory. Without much success.

Then we checked the other directory for the corresponding old name of Changning Road; this was pretty easy. It used to be known as  Bresnan Road. We then check the other directory for the list of buildings and residences along Bresnan Road. Most of the places on the list were factories and private residences of the wealthy…and then we saw:

61-5 St. Mary’s Hall High School (A.C.M.)

Tess said she heard this name before but suggested me to google the name. Most results that came up were the St. Mary’s Hall High School in USA or UK, but nothing about Shanghai; probably not when you’re reading this as mine will be included in the results!

I’m fortunate to understand Chinese so I “baidu” instead. It turns out that this ruins was indeed St. Mary’s Hall, the school that Eileen Chang studied!

Founded by the same church that established St. John’s University, the original campus was located within St. John’s until 1922, when they moved to Bresnan Road. Once considered as one of the 2 most prestigious schools for girls, it was merged with McTyeire School in 1952 to form the present day Shanghai No. 3 Middle School for girls, and the campus has been based in McTyeire School since then.

The then St. Mary’s Hall became a garment vocational school and later became part of HuaDong University until some years ago when HuaDong sold it to the developer.

I’ve had a chance to meet a designer tonight (1 day after I met Tess) who has got friends studying in HuaDong and she told me that HuaDong sold the land to the developer for 500 million yuan and the developer immediately torn down part of the building. Later they were stopped by the government since there is a plaque on the building’s wall. But as Tess told me, she witnessed lots of buildings with plaques demolished over the years.

It’s nice to have this mystery finally solved. I can’t wait to share with Kylie this exciting news. So let’s pray it won’t disappear, but frankly speaking, who knows?