Urgent repairs after cracking at Bund 22
The Bund 22 building (left) with arched windows and balcony gates is the southernmost of the dozens of historical buildings on the Bund.
Emergency reparis are to be carried out at a historical Bund building after part of its structure suffered severe cracks and subsidence.
Bund 22, originally built in 1906 for British trade company Butterfield & Swire Co, one of the four biggest foreign firms in Shanghai at the time, was declared "dangerous" after a structural evaluation.
The north building will have structural repairs while its east part, a listed structure, will be renovated and stabilized, the Huangpu District government said on Monday.
The six-story red-brick building on the Bund, once home to China’s earliest ballpoint pen factory, the Fenghua Pen Company, is in three parts. The east building was built in 1906, while the south and north buildings were added in recent years.
It reopened in 2013 as a high-end commercial complex. Upscale restaurants and fashion boutiques are based there and fashion shows are often held in the middle hall of the building.
However, the exterior wall of the north building cracked and fell off last year. A major crack throughout the building appeared in November along with subsidence, the Huangpu government said.
An initial analysis listed the building as a top-level "Dsu" dangerous structure. The east building also has cracks due to subsidence.
The city's house safety authority reevaluated the building along with architectural experts and decided to launch an "emergency renovation" project. The plan has been approved by the city government and work will start soon.
Tenants in the building started moving out from Saturday.
El Willy, a popular Spanish restaurant, closed on Monday. It had reopened just a week ago after it closed over the Spring Festival holiday and remained shut because of the coronavirus outbreak.
"Sunday was our last day of service, which is a message hard to share with our customers," a restaurant official said.
The eclectic-style building with arched windows and balcony gates is the southernmost of the dozens of historic buildings on the Bund.
Once, workers unloaded cargo from ships berthing at the port along the Huangpu River and took cargo across the former Zhongshan Road E. to store in the building’s warehouses, according to historic photos at the Shanghai Municipal Archives.
Foreign staff could be seen through each arched window of the building while lines of transportation workers carried cargo between ships and the building, according to the archives.
The building was taken over by the city government in 1949 when it allocated the building to the Fenghua Pen Company.
It turned the office building into a pen factory and added a floor to expand manufacturing, which caused the initial damage on the building's structure, said Xue Liyong, a researcher from Shanghai History Museum.
A businessman rented the building in the 1990s and conducted improper decoration and reconstruction, which further damaged the structure, Xue said. The building was given protected status in 2005.
"The building's condition today reminds us that structural safety should always be the top priority when using historical buildings," Xue said.
Bund 22 was originally built in 1906 for British trade company Butterfield & Swire Co.
A photograph of the Bund 22 building taken in 1923.
A photograph taken in 1912 in one of the offices in the Bund 22 building.
