The Saga of 81 Chaonei Dajie Continues

I first blogged about 81 Chaonei Dajie back in 2008 and have done so occasionally ever since as new rumours surface as to the Beijing buildings future. Frankly I’m amazed the French baroque style buildings are still there!! In Shanghai they would have either gone by now or become a bar, but Beijing’s record is far more awful and that they’re still standing, even in their current rather untended and decrepit state is something close to a miracle. Fitting perhaps as the buildings were the former missionary language training school. There have also been rumours about some French train magnate owning the buildings but I know of no solid evidence of that. Another erroneous tale has been circulating that the buildings were formerly the USSR Embassy pre-1949 but that’s nonsense too. Certainly the property is now controlled by the Beijing Catholic Diocese but they have not proved to ever be great lovers of preservation.

And so now Shanghaiist reports more rumours about renovation plans – rumours that have periodically cropped up every six months or so for years now. And while it is true that No.81 has a preservation order applied to it this, as regular China Rhyming readers will know, effectively means nothing as this blog is packed full of Shanghai and Beijing properties with preservation orders who were bulldozed at 3am to make way for a shopping mall.

Maybe this time something will happen. As the insides have largely been gutted already and partially open to the elements for a decade or more now there is probably little left to salvage inside but it is to be hoped that any “restoration plan” doesn’t involve knocking the whole thing down and rebuilding it in a sort of similar style! A Beijing developer tactic we’re all familiar with time and again.