The former site of the Ministry of foreign affairs of the National Government

The former site of the Ministry of foreign affairs of the National Government

The former site of the Ministry of foreign affairs of the national government is located at the intersection of Zhongshan North Road, Yunnan North Road and Hubei Road, Gulou District, Nanjing city. It is the former site of the Ministry of foreign affairs of the former national government of the Republic of China. The user of the former site is the Standing Committee of Jiangsu Provincial People's Congress.

The former site of the Ministry of foreign affairs was built in 1934 (the 23rd year of the Republic of China). It was designed by Zhao Shen, Tong GA and Chen Zhi. It adopts the modern economic and practical form and combines with the characteristics of Chinese traditional architecture. It is a model of Chinese New National Architecture.

The Ministry of foreign affairs of the national government was established in May 1927. In October 1928, the national government implemented the five chamber system, and the Ministry of foreign affairs was subordinate to the Executive Yuan. Its main function is to deal with international negotiations, manage all affairs of overseas Chinese and overseas Chinese residing in China, and also manage embassies and consulates abroad. During the period of the Republic of China, the Foreign Ministry of the national government worked here, except that it was occupied by Ningci Okamura as the general headquarters of China's sending troops during the period of the Japanese occupation.

In 1991, the Ministry of construction and the State Administration of cultural relics rated it as an excellent modern building. In 1992, it was listed as a cultural relic protection unit in Nanjing. In June 2001, the former site of the Ministry of foreign affairs of the national government was listed as a national key cultural relics protection unit by the State Council. On November 24, 2018, it was selected as "the third batch of Chinese 20th century architectural heritage projects".

historical background

The Ministry of foreign affairs of the national government was built in March 1931. It was originally designed by Yang Tingbao, architect of Tianjin Jitai engineering department. The plane of the building is I-shaped, with a construction area of 4000 square meters. The front and back parts of the building are connected by big stairs, and the space is full of changes. The building adopts the traditional Chinese classical architectural form, with double eaves at the top of the mountain, glazed tile roof, two floors above the ground and one floor semi basement. There are platform steps in front, and large glass windows between the walls and columns. Details of the use of Qing style Dougong painting, ceiling caisson. Later, because of the national government's retrenchment of funds, the plan was not implemented. From 1932 to 1933, Zhao Shen, Tong Yi and Chen Zhi of Shanghai Huagai architectural firm also designed the building of the Ministry of foreign affairs. Considering that the cost of palace style building was too high, they neither copied the western architectural style nor copied the Chinese palace style building, but according to the needs of modern technology and function, they adopted "economic, practical and Chinese" layout and modeling In the end, this project was adopted.

The compound of the Ministry of foreign affairs covers an area of 45.6679 Mu and a construction area of 8500 square meters. It was built by Yao Xinji construction factory. It was started in March 1934 and completed in June the next year. The construction cost is more than 300000 yuan.

During the Anti Japanese War, it became the location of the "general headquarters of Chinese dispatched forces" of the Japanese army, and the commander-in-chief of the Japanese army invading China, Ningci Okamura, worked here. After the victory of the Anti Japanese War, he was still the Ministry of foreign affairs of the national government. On May 1, 1949, Nanjing Military Control Commission took over the Ministry of foreign affairs.

Organization setup

The Ministry of foreign affairs has one minister, one administrative and one executive vice minister. The internal departments include Asia East Department, Asia West Department, Europe Department, America Department, treaty department, Protocol Department, information department, general affairs department, as well as the Secretariat, counselor's office, confidential room, personnel department, accounting room, etc. it also governs the office of the High Commissioner and the offices of special commissioners. Previous foreign ministers include Wu Chaoshu, Huang Ying, Wang Zhengting, Shi Zhaoji, Gu Weijun, Chen Youren, Luo Wengan, Wang Jingwei, Chen Qun, Wang Chonghui, Guo Taiqi, Song Ziwen, Wang Shijie, Wu Tiecheng and Fu bingchang.

architectural style

The Foreign Ministry building covers an area of 5050 square meters. Facing the drum tower, it has a T-shaped plane, a reinforced concrete structure, a flat roof and a spacious porch. There are four stories in the middle, three stories in the wings and one story in the semi basement. The plane design and elevation composition of the whole building basically adopts western modern architectural techniques, and combines the characteristics and details of traditional Chinese architecture. From the appearance of the building, the facade is divided into three parts: plinth, wall body and eaves: the exterior wall of the bottom half basement is painted with cement to symbolize the base; the wall is overlaid with brown tiles; the eaves is decorated with simple brackets made of the same color glazed tiles. The ceiling of the hall inside the building is decorated with Qing style color paintings, and the interior walls are made with traditional wallboard details. In addition, hollow bricks are used in the external walls, walls and floors of the buildings, so the problem of sound quality has been satisfactorily solved, which effectively solves the problem of sound insulation. The first, second and third floors of the office building of the Ministry of foreign affairs are offices, reception rooms and conference rooms, and the fourth floor stores archives. Each room has sufficient air, comfortable light, suitable location, orderly distribution and reasonable layout. Opposite the office building, there is a staff dormitory. The building is one of the models of Chinese new national architecture. The magazine "Chinese architecture" published in the Republic of China commented that the office building of the Ministry of foreign affairs "is one of the most modern buildings in the capital; it gives full play to the inherent architectural art of our country, and can make it practical, but in every point of the times, it has all kinds of unnecessary decorations, which is inferior to the simplicity and solemnity of the building.".

Cultural relic rating

In 1991, the Ministry of construction and the State Administration of cultural relics rated it as an excellent modern building. In 1992, it was listed as a cultural relic protection unit in Nanjing. In July 2001, it was listed as a national key cultural relics protection unit.

geographical position

Address: No.32, Zhongshan North Road, Gulou District, Nanjing

Longitude: 118.778561

Latitude: 32.06433

Ticket information: no ticket required.

Chinese PinYin : Guo Min Zheng Fu Wai Jiao Bu Jiu Zhi