Discover Shanghai
1933 Old Millfun
1933老场坊
The former Shanghai Municipal Council abattoir of 1933, the only one of three such buildings worldwide still intact, now a creative complex. Inside is a concrete labyrinth of umbrella columns, flying ramps and the spiralling 'cattle ways' once used to drive animals upstairs.
The story
What makes this place special
This was the Shanghai Municipal Council Slaughterhouse, completed in 1933 to a British design and at the time the largest abattoir in the Far East; only a handful of comparable buildings were built anywhere and this is the one that survives intact. Its structure is the point: a beamless floor system, over 300 umbrella-shaped mushroom columns, four levels of external galleries linked by 26 inclined bridges, and the spiral ramps that cattle were driven up. It was listed as a district historic site in January 2004, as an outstanding historic building by the city in October 2005, converted to a creative-industry complex from 2006 with the main works finished in November 2007, and designated a national key protected monument in 2020.
What you’ll discover
A hollow square of concrete galleries wrapped around a central block, with the inclined cattle bridges crossing the void at every level - the most photographed interior in Hongkou and genuinely strange to stand in. You walk up the spiral ramps that cattle used, along the open galleries, and across the bridges. The tenants are offices, cafes and event spaces and the commercial content is thin; the architecture is the whole visit, about an hour.
A little local insight
Good to know before you go
- Go up to the third and fourth gallery levels. The crossing bridges only read as a system from above, and most visitors photograph the atrium from the ground and leave.
- Walk one of the spiral cattle ramps deliberately, rather than taking the lift. The ramp gradient and the rough non-slip floor were designed for hooves, and feeling that is the thing you came for.
- Look at the column heads - the mushroom capitals are octagonal in some zones and square in others, which tracks the original internal functions.
- Commercially it is half empty, which puts people off. That is not a failure of your visit; the building is the attraction and the quiet makes it better.
- It is in Hongkou, near Sichuan North Road, and combines naturally with Duolun Road and the Lu Xun sites in one walking day.
- Weekday mornings are empty; weekends bring wedding and fashion shoots that block the best bridges.
When to come
Late morning on a weekday, when daylight falls into the atrium from above and nobody is shooting on the bridges. Any season - it is covered but not enclosed, so it is cold in winter.
Getting around
Mixed. There are lifts serving the gallery levels and the ground floor is level, so a wheelchair can reach the upper galleries and see the bridges. The bridges themselves are inclined and some have a step at the junction; the spiral cattle ramps are continuous slopes with no steps and are passable with a strong pusher, though steeper than a modern ramp standard. For a bad knee the lifts solve it, and the ramps are an easier climb than stairs.
Worth knowing before you go
Most of it is offices, so go up the ramps and bridges rather than looking for exhibits - the architecture is the attraction. Weekday afternoons are near-empty, which is when the brutalist interior photographs best.
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