St Ignatius Cathedral, Xujiahui

St Ignatius Cathedral (徐家汇天主堂, Xújiāhuì Tiānzhǔtáng), at 158 Puxi Road, is the Catholic cathedral of Shanghai. Its two red-brick spires, each about 60 metres high, stand over the Xujiahui district, built by French Jesuits and finished in 1910.

In 1851 the French Jesuits built a first, small church at Xujiahui for about 200 people, on land given by descendants of the Ming scholar Xu Guangqi (徐光启). A new church was commissioned as the congregation grew. The foundation stone of the present church was laid on 7 October 1906 by the French consul, Ratard, and it was finished in 1910, with the opening ceremony and first Mass on 23 October. The sources disagree on the architect. English Wikipedia names William Doyle and Chinese Wikipedia names W. M. Dowdall, so this page names neither.

The church is built of brick and timber on a Latin-cross plan, about 79 metres long, and holds 2,500 people. The east doors carry statues of the four Evangelists, with a large stone figure of Christ holding a cross at the centre. The walls are red brick on a blue-stone base, and the roof gutters drain through stone animal-head spouts.

In 1960 the bishop’s seat moved here from the smaller Church of St Francis Xavier at Dongjiadu (董家渡), which made it the diocese’s cathedral. Six years later it was badly damaged. The spires and their cast-iron crosses were removed, the interior and the organ were destroyed, the stained glass was smashed, and the building became a warehouse. It was handed back in January 1979 and reopened for worship that November. Repairs were done by Christmas 1980, and the spires went back up in 1982. Because the original glassmaker, the Tushanwan workshop (土山湾), no longer existed, the replacement glass was made by the priests themselves and did not match the colour of the old.

Later work added to that. From 2002 the artist Wo Ye and Father Thomas Lucas made new windows that use Chinese characters and imagery, first shown for the 2010 World Expo. The cathedral was listed as a Shanghai municipal protected site and outstanding historical building in 1989 and as a national key protected site on 5 March 2013. A full restoration ran from August 2015 to December 2017.

The cathedral is near Xujiahui metro station, exit 3. Chinese Wikipedia says visits moved to a reservation system in October 2013, but no official page was found for hours or entry rules, so check before you go.