Ningbo Banking Guild Hall, Historical banking hall in Haishu District, China.
The Ningbo Banking Guild Hall is a brick-and-wood complex at 10 Zhanchuan Street, built 1925–1926 for the city's native banks. Facing south on a 1,500-square-metre trapezoidal plot, it has three successive courtyards: a gatehouse, a two-storey hall, and a rear council chamber with a garden and hexagonal concrete pavilion. Grey brick carvings and red Western tiles cover a traditional timber frame.
The Ningbo guild hall traces its origins to the Jiangxia money houses and their guild office in Binjiang Temple, rebuilt by the trade in 1862 after Taiping troops destroyed it. In 1923, 28 large and 34 small money houses raised over 90,000 silver dollars to build a new hall on Zhanchuan Street, completed in 1926. Business moved there fully by 1933; after the money houses closed, the People's Bank of China took over the building in 1988.
The guild hall's name comes from the qianzhuang, native Ningbo banks that funded it: 28 large and 34 small houses raised over 90,000 silver dollars for its construction. Their guild ran cash trading and currency exchange here, and the small banks' "Yongjiu Hui" association also met in the building. The stage on the central axis was destroyed, so the surviving halls show the business side of the complex.
The hall stands at 10 Zhanchuan Street in Haishu District, set back from the Jintang River waterfront. The building runs south to north in three successive courtyards, so visitors pass from the gate tower through the front hall and stage to the rear meeting hall. The stage itself was destroyed and no longer survives; the rest of the structure is intact.
In March 2016 the People's Bank of China issued a gold and silver commemorative coin set for the hall's 90th anniversary: the gold coin shows a map of the three rivers' confluence at Ningbo, the silver one the guild hall's gate and interior. It was the bank's first precious-metal coin set devoted to Ningbo.
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