Shanghai Bund weather signal station

The Shanghai Bund weather signal station, also known as the Bund Observatory, is one of the most famous buildings on the Bund and has now become a bund history exhibition room. The second floor is converted into a coffee shop. On the third floor, there is a circular platform surrounded by railings. Standing on the platform, you can see the Huangpu River and the north and South Bund.

It's very cold to visit the Bund by boat in winter. In addition to sightseeing by boat, the weather signal station on the Bund is also an excellent place to enjoy the night view of the Bund. There is a nostalgic time bar on the second floor of the weather station. The wall is full of pictures of old Shanghai and stars of the 1930s. There is a platform on the top floor where you can drink coffee. Pudong is booming in the East and Jinling Road in the West. Holding a warm coffee and enjoying the beautiful scenery of the Bund for a while, it is absolutely the best place to enjoy the scenery in winter night.

Shanghai Bund weather signal station

Shanghai Bund weather signal station is one of the landmark buildings in Shanghai Bund, which is listed as the national key protected building. In 1884, the Xujiahui Observatory, founded by the French Catholic Church, set up a meteorological signal station on the Bund of "Yangjingbang" (now the Bund of Yan'an East Road). The signal station is a long wooden pole standing on the ground. According to the meteorological information from the observatory. In 1907, the cylindrical meteorological signal was reconstructed. The height of the station was 50 meters, and the height of the tower was 36.8 meters. In order to protect this building, the Bund reconstruction project in 1993 moved it 20 meters eastward. The second floor is now a nostalgic time bar

The origin of signal station

Shanghai Bund weather signal station is one of the only two atanub style buildings in Shanghai. The tower was built in 1907, 87 years ago. However, the history of the Bund signal station can be traced back to 1884, which is closely linked with the historical process since the opening of Shanghai.

The history of signal station is closely related to the development of international navigation. The development and expansion of Western capitalist economy, merchant shipping and warship navigation are inseparable from the weather. In August 1853, at the International Maritime Conference held in Brussels, meteorology was discussed as an important factor in navigation. In 1854, the British Department of Commerce set up the meteorological department. In 1861, it first used signal code to send storm warning. After that, Britain began to use the method of hanging signals to issue storm warnings in Newcastle and other ports, and signal stations were set up one after another in important European ports.

In 1840, the British colonists launched the Opium War and forced the Qing government to sign the Sino British Treaty of Nanjing on August 29, 1842, which made Shanghai one of the five trading ports. In 1850, after the British liner "Mary wood" first opened the route from Hong Kong to Shanghai, foreign companies sent ships to Shanghai one after another. In the 1850s, Shanghai became the largest port and foreign trade center in China. In order to enable merchant ships and warships to navigate safely in the "dangerous Far East Sea", meteorological support has become an urgent problem to be solved.

After the opening of Shanghai port, British and French missionaries successively carried out meteorological observation in Shanghai. Later, the French Catholic Church of Jesus decided to set up an observatory in Xujiahui, Shanghai, in August 1872, and began meteorological observation in December of the same year. Since May 1873, the meteorological observation data of the next day have been published in newspapers, and the weather information reports of parts of China and Japan have been published daily on the bulletin board opposite the customs, so that merchant ships and warships can obtain meteorological information when they leave the port.

On July 31, 1879, a typhoon struck Shanghai, causing heavy losses. M. dechvrens, director of Xujiahui Observatory, made an analysis of the typhoon and believed that it was necessary to establish a meteorological warning signal system as long as the Chinese customs, the telegraph company, the French Concession Council and other relevant authorities cooperated sincerely. After the publication of nennes' paper, it has been appreciated and supported by people from all walks of life. In particular, the managers and captains of shipping companies have written letters one after another, hoping to see the establishment of a weather warning signal station in Shanghai port. At the same time, they hope to set up a standard time report so that the navigation hour can be calibrated.

On September 20, 1881, the Shanghai Western Chamber of Commerce passed a resolution to invest in the establishment of an organization to provide weather information to mariners, asking father nennes to give guidance. At the same time, it provided funds for the purchase of meteorological observation instruments, which were installed on the ocean going ship on February 18, 1884. Thus, the range of marine meteorological observation is expanded and the conditions for the establishment of signal stations are created.

Taiwan construction plan

Since its establishment in 1873, China Shipping Merchants Group has opened up foreign routes to Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam and the United States.

In order to meet the needs of ship navigation safety, China Merchants Group obtained the approval of Zuo Zongtang, governor of Liangjiang of the Qing government in December 1882, and set up telephone poles along Xujiahui Road to Xujiahui Observatory, so as to obtain maritime meteorological information. After hearing the news, the Council of the French concession made a quick response and decided on December 21 to set up a weather warning signal station and a time ball near the Western Wharf on the Huangpu River, the Bund where foreign companies and foreign shipping companies are concentrated. At the same time, the French consul general in Shanghai, Flesch, was requested to negotiate with Shao Youlian of Shanghai Daotai to obtain the right to set up telephone lines along Xujiahui Road to Xujiahui observatory. At that time, France was invading Vietnam. In order to safeguard China's sovereignty, Shao Youlian twice severely rejected Fu Laishi's request on the ground that "governor Zuo of Liangjiang has issued a notice to approve China Merchants Group to set up a line first". In this regard, the public Council of the French concession was extremely dissatisfied. It still protested against China Merchants' erecting pole and stringing on the ground that Xujiahui Road was built by the French army and the public Council provided funds for maintenance. It once again asked Fu Laishi to negotiate with Shanghai Daotai. Due to the increasingly tense relations between China and France, the French fleet frequently moved along the southeast coast of China, and the Sino French war was imminent. Fu Laishi wrote back to the Council on March 26, 1883, refusing to negotiate again. At the same time, he accused the board of directors of "not raising any protest against the local authorities" and "only the national representative has the power to deal with all issues of an international nature."

The 18th board of directors of the French Concession Council was criticized by the consul general for failing to achieve its purpose due to the stringing requirements. The general director, vouillement, deputy general director, blnnlsebli and four directors resigned one after another on March 29. As a result, the board of directors was reorganized and the plan to set up a signal desk was temporarily shelved.

Development process

After the election of the 18th board of directors of the Council of the French concession on April 19, 1883, the director of Xujiahui Observatory, Neng Neng, wrote a letter to the Council, saying: "it is of great interest to set up a weather signal station and determine the time standard in such an important commercial port as Shanghai.". Nennes avoided the problem of setting up telephone poles, and prepared to use manpower to send weather reports. All he needed to do was to buy an astronomical clock and a transit instrument. General director n. J. Orion read out nennes' letter at the extraordinary meeting of the board of directors on April 30. On May 29, it was decided to set up a weather signal station at Yangjingbang bridge on the Bund. We will invest 3000 taels of silver in the purchase of instruments and subsidize 300 taels of silver every year as maintenance fee. Since Danish businessmen set up China's first telephone office in 1882 in the Bund Pidgin, Xujiahui Observatory opened the meteorological service telephone for foreign companies, and soon connected with the signal station, so the communication problem was solved.

The Bund signal station was officially put into service on September 1, 1884. This is the first signal station founded by foreigners on Chinese territory, and it is also one of the earliest signal stations in Asia and the Pacific. The signal station is administratively assigned to the office of the Prime Minister of the French Concession as a subsidiary body, with about 10 Chinese and foreign employees. Xu Daosheng and Xu Linsheng, the 11th grandson of Xu Guangqi, a famous scientist and a cabinet minister in the late Ming Dynasty, all worked at the signal station. The business of the signal station is led by the Xujiahui Observatory, and the director of the station is also the director of the Xujiahui observatory. The meteorological warning and time service signals are decided and released by the Xujiahui observatory. The Bund signal station is actually the "window" of Xujiahui Observatory's external service.

The Bund signal station at the time of initial construction was relatively crude. A wooden mast was erected next to a hut, with a weather warning signal and a wind ball to indicate the wind direction. In order to adapt to the increasing development of signal service, a. FROC, the director of the station, wrote to the Council of the French concession on October 18, 1847, asking for the expansion of the signal station, and attached the project plan drawn up by the architect chollot. The board accepted the plan and allocated $1480. The project was completed on August 19, 1898.

The wooden mast of the Bund signal station was broken by typhoon and thunderstorm on August 3, 1901 and July 5, 1906 respectively. The meridian ball suddenly fell and broke the roof of the nearby office. This prompted the Council of the French concession to decide on July 26, 1906 to build a new signal station as soon as possible. At that time, there were two design schemes, one was put forward by charigron, a railway engineer, and the other was put forward by Marti, an architect. The board of directors decided to adopt Marti's design scheme with a cost of 10247 US dollars. The contract was signed on February 6, 1907, and the same year

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