Hidden behind the shopping blocks around Xintiandi sits the former Lagena Primary School, a 1935 campus that was physically rotated and moved 62 meters in 2020 during a preservation project. Originally built by the French Municipal Council and later used as the campus for Bile Middle School, the building now feels strangely disconnected from the city around it, between luxury malls and office towers but carrying the atmosphere of another Shanghai entirely.
The relocation itself became a minor engineering spectacle at the time. Over 18 days, the entire 7,600-ton structure was slowly turned and repositioned to make way for surrounding development, reportedly the first project of its kind in Shanghai for a building of this scale and layout.
The school is worth visiting even before seeing the exhibitions. Old classroom windows, worn staircases, peeling walls, and long empty corridors still carry traces of its former life. The building now mostly functions as a temporary cultural venue for smaller exhibitions and pop-ups, though it still feels suspended between uses, not fully abandoned, not fully active either. During the visit, there was almost no one there besides a security guard and a staff member, which only added to the feeling of wandering through a forgotten pocket of central Shanghai.
Two new exhibitions have now opened on the fourth floor. Shanghai artist Qiu Jia's solo exhibition "How to Make Things Stand" fills one room with precarious sculptures assembled from old beams, plaster, wood, and salvaged materials that look like they could collapse at any moment. The group exhibition "Intangible Infrastructure" brings together works by five artists exploring invisible urban systems, temporary states, and overlooked traces through sculpture and installation.Even if contemporary art isn't usually your thing, the building itself is probably enough reason to go if you are near Xintiandi area.
