Blackstone Apartments

The Blackstone Apartments (黑石公寓, Hēishí Gōngyù) at 1331 Fuxing Middle Road is a 1924 apartment house in the former French Concession, named for the black stone in its walls, and one of the few old apartment buildings in the district where a visitor can walk in: its ground floor is a public bookshop-café.

It was built on what was then Route Lafayette by James Harry Blackstone, an American Methodist missionary known in Chinese as 宋合理, who meant it to be the largest and most luxurious apartment hotel in Shanghai. The plans called for 31 suites, a heated swimming pool, a restaurant, a ballroom, a roof garden, three tennis courts and twelve garages. The finished building had lifts, central heating and servants, and a letting advertisement in 1925 called it the best apartment house in China.

The Chinese name has shifted over time. In the 1920s it was 花旗公寓, the “American apartments”; after 1949 it became the Fuxing Apartments (复兴公寓), after the renamed road; but people have always called it 黑石, the black stone, after the dark stone used for the infill walls and some of the trim. Some writers add that it is also a plain translation of the owner’s surname.

The style is eclectic with a Baroque accent, which in practice means curves. The street facade is symmetrical, divided five ways across and three ways up. A deep porch at the entrance stands on paired Corinthian stone columns, simplified in their carving. Above it is a terrace whose edge is drawn in three curves, and above that the balconies are curved too, each stepping back from the one below. The roofline is finished with a curved gable in the centre, and the south face carries an oval ornament at the top. The structure is reinforced concrete. The design had five storeys; the building now has six, the top floor a later addition.

Tenants in the 1930s included the former premier Xiong Xiling (熊希龄), who married Mao Yanwen (毛彦文) in 1935 and set up their new home on the third floor. After the Second World War the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration had offices here. After 1949 the building passed to the Xuhui district housing bureau, which used the ground floor as its offices and kept the upper floors as flats.

The city listed the building among its outstanding historical buildings in 2005, in the same batch as the Elizabeth Apartments next door at number 1327; the Clement Apartments stand on the other side, and the hall of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra is across the road. From 2016 the block was renovated as part of a music-themed quarter around the hall. Since 2020 the ground floor has been open as a cultural space called 黑石M+, with the bookshop-café 幸福集荟 occupying the ground floor, its café built where the swimming pool used to be. Floors two to six remain homes and offices.