Fuxing Park

Fuxing Park (复兴公园, Fùxīng Gōngyuán) is a public park in the former French Concession, opened in 1909. It combines a formal French-style garden with a Chinese-style garden, and it holds a statue of Marx and Engels from 1985.

The French Concession council bought the land in 1900 to build the Gujiazhai barracks. In July 1908 it decided to turn the barracks into a park, and the park opened in 1909 as Gujiazhai Park (顾家宅公园, Gùjiāzhái Gōngyuán). Chinese Wikipedia says it was at first open only to French nationals and that Chinese visitors were admitted from 1928.

The original design is credited to a French gardener, Papot (柏勃), and is said to follow the Parc de la Tête d’Or in Lyon. By 1925 the park had reached roughly its present size under the French engineer Jousseaume (约少默). The layout is formal and geometric in the north-central part and naturalistic in the south-west, where a Chinese-style garden has a lotus pond, a covered corridor and rockeries. The park also has a sunken rose garden and a felt-pattern flower bed.

From 1938 a zoo operated in the park; it closed in 1963 and its animals moved to Xijiao Park, now Shanghai Zoo. During the Wang Jingwei government of 1943–44 the park was renamed Daxing Park (大兴公园). It took the name Fuxing Park in 1946.

The Marx and Engels statue is by the sculptor Zhang Yonghao (章永浩) and was completed in 1985. A Pengpai News feature says Shanghai chose this park for the statue because it is next to the site of the First National Congress and Sun Yat-sen’s former residence.

Chinese Wikipedia says the park was recognised in 2009 as a Huangpu District cultural heritage site. Sources disagree on its size, giving about 7.3 hectares in one and about 10 in another.

Opening hours are not confirmed from an official page.