Jiaoyi Building

A hundred meters from the Changning Campus of East China University of Political Science and Law stands an impressive building with green glazed roof tiles and upturned eaves. Blending Chinese style with a Western structure, it is the most splendid building on campus: Jiaoyi Building.
Jiaoyi Building was designed by Fan Wenzhao, a 1917 graduate of the Department of Civil Engineering at St. John’s University, and reflects the beauty of Chinese architecture. This style emerged from the late 1920s to the 1930s, an important period in modern China’s exploration of a national architectural form. Represented by the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum (1926–1929), Chinese architects began combining modern Western building techniques with traditional Chinese architectural styles.
Jiaoyi Building is a composite structure of reinforced concrete, brick, and timber. The main façade on the ground floor is a cement wall with three arched entrances, surrounded by white stone carved with symmetrical Chinese patterns. The internal structure of the second and third floors is in fact one level. On the exterior, opposite the arches below, four red columns divide the façade into three bays, with red-brick walls on either side. The hipped roof is covered with green glazed tiles, and seven auspicious beasts stand at each of the four eave corners. Flying rafters sit beneath the eaves, while the column tops are connected by tie beams and backing boards. Where the tie beams meet, they are decorated with red-and-green painted patterns in the style of Chinese palace architecture.

   Jiaoyi Building

Construction of Jiaoyi Building began in 1919 and took ten years to complete. It was finished on 14 December 1929, when St. John’s held its 50th anniversary celebration. The large social hall on the upper level was used for meetings and cultural activities, and could also host basketball matches. Around the upper part of the hall were spectator stands and a projection room. The lower level had 11 rooms of various sizes for student societies.
On 15 November 1952, the first opening ceremony of East China College of Political Science and Law was held in the large social hall of Jiaoyi Building. Since then, Jiaoyi Building has long served as the university’s conference center and a venue for academic exchange. In 2019, the modern architectural complex of St. John’s University was listed among the eighth batch of Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level, with Jiaoyi Building included. Today, academic discussion and the exchange of ideas continue within its walls, adding further layers to the building’s history.