City Hall

The town hall of Shanghai

The town hall of Shanghai is the seat of the municipal government, an imposing building with a clear façade dominating the People's Square, designed by the Japanese architect Kenzo Tange. The Shanghai audio-guided tour stops here to evoke this decision-making heart of the metropolis, completed in 1995, where the great projects of the town are shaped.

The decision-making heart of the metropolis

This imposing building, with a clear façade and pure lines, embodies the power and the modernity of Shanghai: it is the town hall, seat of the municipal government. Designed by the Japanese architect Kenzo Tange, one of the great masters of twentieth-century urbanism, it was completed in 1995. More than seventy metres high and counting eighteen floors, it shelters more than two thousand municipal civil servants, and its structure combines rigour, natural light and functionality. Although closed to the public, it remains the decision-making heart of the town, there where its great economic, social and cultural projects are shaped. But the history of the town hall of Shanghai does not begin here. In the 1930s, its seat was in Jiangwan, in the north of the town, where a monumental building of Chinese style served as the centrepiece of an ambitious urban plan, the Greater Shanghai, that wanted to endow the metropolis with a modern and national administrative centre, facing the foreign concessions. On the People's Square, the present town hall is part of the long tradition of a Shanghai that dreams of itself as a great capital. With its sober silhouette dominating the esplanade, between the Grand Theatre and the museum, it completes the monumental ensemble that makes the square the civic forum of the town. A seat of the government and an urban symbol, the town hall of Shanghai is a stop of the discovery of the town.

What to see

You admire the imposing seat of the municipal government, with a clear façade and pure lines, designed by the Japanese architect Kenzo Tange and completed in 1995, more than seventy metres high and of eighteen floors; closed to the public, it remains the decision-making heart of the town and completes, between the Grand Theatre and the museum, the monumental ensemble of the People's Square. The town hall is an urban symbol of Shanghai. It is a stop, to be explored on foot.

Practical information

The town hall of Shanghai lies on the People's Square, in the Huangpu district, reachable on foot and by metro. It is an administrative building closed to the public, whose façade you admire from the square. You discover it during a walk around the esplanade.

Who designed the town hall of Shanghai?

The Japanese architect Kenzo Tange, one of the great masters of twentieth-century urbanism, who completed it in 1995; more than seventy metres high and of eighteen floors, this seat of the municipal government, closed to the public, remains the decision-making heart of the town and completes the monumental ensemble of the People's Square.

Where is the town hall of Shanghai?

On the People's Square, in the Huangpu district, in Shanghai, in China.