Jardine Matheson Building, Protected heritage building on The Bund, Shanghai, China.
The Jardine Matheson Building at No. 27 on the Bund is a six-storey reinforced-concrete structure in English Renaissance style, with two floors added in 1983. Its granite-clad facade is divided into three horizontal sections; the lower two floors have Roman-arched windows, and four Corinthian columns span the third to fifth floors. A carved stone ram's head sits above a second-floor window.
The building was constructed in 1922 by architects Moorhead and Halse, replacing an earlier English cottage from 1845. An additional floor was added in 1930, and modifications continued through the subsequent decades.
The building's name comes from Jardine Matheson, founded in Guangzhou in 1832 by William Jardine and James Matheson. In 1863 the firm helped five Choshu samurai travel to Britain; their ship stopped in Shanghai, where the five saw the city's foreign warships and changed their minds about expelling foreigners. Today the ground floor holds a Rolex flagship store, while floors 2, 3, 8 and 9 are occupied by the Roosevelt Club.
The building sits in a central waterfront location with easy street access and ground-floor retail spaces visible from outside. The interior floors are primarily occupied by offices and cultural facilities.
The mosaic floors of the upper corridors survive largely intact, and the green "tiles" in them are set with jade. The main staircase is nearly 4.9 metres wide, covered with copper anti-slip panels and cast-iron balustrades with scroll-shaped forgings.
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