Chinese Photographs & Views. Ca. early 1930s.

A Japanese photographic documentary of life and circumstances in Tianjin in the 1930s. The images on the left represent a remarkable feature of urban planning and design unique to western concessions in China: the gardens. Unlike Shanghai, Beijing, Hankou and other cities with a strong foreign presence, each of Tianjin’s major concessions had its own public garden. The images on the left show the Japanese public garden, complete with a pond, a fountain, and a pavilion. Other gardens were executed in a French, a British or a German style, depending on the domain and culture they belonged to.

Also note the interesting and important photograph to the lower right, which shows an assembly of straw huts reinforced with mud, serving as Chinese style temporary relief shelter for farmers and rural residents hit by a famine. The huts shown here were sponsored and administered by a joint Chinese-Japanese committee on famine relief.

Date of establishment and size of the individual foreign concessions in Tianjin.

In 1860, with the opening of Tianjin as a treaty port, Britain, France and America secured concession areas in Tianjin of 27.6, 21.6 and 7.86 hectares respectively in 1860-1861. During the next phase, in 1895-1897, Germany acquired 62.4 hectares in October 1895; Japan acquired 100.02 hectares in 1896-1898, to be further expanded in 1900, and Britain expanded its existing area westwards to a total of 97.8 hectares. This was followed by the third stage, when between 1900 and 1902 new concessions were opened by Russia (328.44 hectares), Italy (46.26), Belgium (44.85) and Austria (61.8), in 1900, 1901, 1900 and 1902 respectively. In this period the American concession was absorbed into the British one, which also expanded further westwards in 1901, and reached a total area of 368.94 hectares (later almost 400). The French, German and Japanese concessions were also expanded to 171.6, 245.04 and 124.4 hectares respectively. The total of the concession areas was thus about 1,400 hectares (or ca. 3800 acres).

Source: School of Architecture, Tianjin University.

Tianjin Concessions Architecture 天津的建築文化 (The Culture of Tianjin Architecture); 1998.

One only needs to look at these images to witness the dimensions of diversity of architectural languages used in Tianjin's foreign concessions. Whether imported from Salamanca, Spain, to be incorporated in the facade of a residential building in the British Concession, or derived from the features of Hever Castle in Kent (Great Britain) and used in the design of a warehouse in the French Concession, architectural “loan items” such as these were common parlance among international architects of the early 20 th century.

Hever Castle, Kent, England.

Examples of Foreign architecture in the Tianjin Concessions

This is a small sample of buildings of various styles and provenance. The image to the left of the Italian Police Station (Polizia Italiana) is undated, but could be from the early 1920s.
Administrative building of the former Kailan Mining Corporation, a British owned business which was engaged in coal and mining business.

Brick houses constructed for the use of western missionaries; Tianjin, around 1899 or early 1900.	The American Consulate in Tianjin, around 1899 or early 1900.

A series of aerial views of the French, Russian and British Concessions (early 1930s)
(Note: large images open in separate window. Files sizes are around 650KB)

“The Belgian Bund”

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The Belgian Concession, established to the southeast of the Russian and opposite the German Concession, as viewed from the river in 1928. This is a very rare view, and not much is known about the Belgian concession except that it was begun not long before 1924, and that the land allocated to Belgium in 1900 [or 1902] comprised 44.85 hectares. By comparison, the total of the concessions was about 1400 hectares, or roughly 3500 acres. The Belgium concession was officially terminated on August 31, 1929.

A (well-preserved and rather unique) Spanish Style building on Racecourse Road

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The Astor House Hotel.

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