In front of you is a row of shikumen, or “stone gate”, houses, the type of home that defined Shanghai. They appeared in the nineteenth century, when thousands of refugees from the civil wars poured into the concessions: two- or three-storey terraced houses, each with a small courtyard behind a stone-framed doorway, grouped in lanes called lilong.

1A meeting in July 1921

This house was built in 1920 at what was then 106 Rue Wantz, inside the French Concession. It was rented by Li Hanjun and his brother Li Shucheng. On 23 July 1921 the First National Congress of the Communist Party of China opened here: thirteen Chinese delegates, among them a young Mao Zedong, and two representatives of the Communist International, Maring and Nikolsky.

On the evening of 30 July, a stranger walked into the house, and shortly afterwards the concession police arrived. The final session was held on a boat on South Lake in Jiaxing, in early August.

The house was identified in 1951 and opened as a museum in 1952. In 2021 a large museum devoted to the Congress opened next door. Entry usually requires a booking and your passport; check before you go.

2Xintiandi

The surrounding blocks were restored in the early 2000s as Xintiandi, “New Heaven and Earth”: shikumen facades were kept and turned into restaurants, shops and terraces. It was one of the first projects of its kind in China.

3What to look for

  • The pediments over the doors, with red brick reliefs.
  • The mix of grey and red brick, typical of shikumen.
  • The lanes of Xintiandi.
Tree-lined street in Xintiandi with brick houses and passers-by
Streets of Xintiandi, next to the Congress house.

Documented

The house dates from 1920; the Congress opened on 23 July 1921 with thirteen delegates and two Comintern representatives, was interrupted on 30 July and ended in Jiaxing.

Sources and credits

Memorial of the First National Congress of the CPC (中共一大纪念馆), official website; Tony Saich, “The Origins of the First United Front in China” (1991); Chinese Wikipedia, “中国共产党第一次全国代表大会会址”.

Photos:

  • Grey and red brick shikumen houses at the site of the CPC First Congress: N509FZ, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  • Tree-lined street in Xintiandi with brick houses and passers-by: Can Pac Swire from Toronto, Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0.

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