Shanghai Museum holds more than 120;000 artifacts representing almost five millennia of continuous Chinese civilization. The Building was designed by Shanghai architect Xing Tonghe to represent a ding; or ancient three-legged bronze vessel. It also incorporates the sacred geometry of Yuanqiu; the circular altar at the Temple of Heaven (Tiantan) in Beijing; with a square base (representing the earth) surmounted by a circular superstructure (representing heaven). It was completed in 1996; and has five floors with a total area of more than 39;200sq.m (420;000 sq ft).

Shanghai began life as a fishing village; and later as a port receiving goods carried down the Yangzi River. From 1842 onwards; in the aftermath of the first Opium War; the British opened a 鈥榗oncession' in Shanghai where drug dealers and other traders could operate undisturbed. French; Italians; Germans; Americans and Japanese all followed. By the 1920s and 1930s; Shanghai was a boom town and an international byword for dissipation. When the Communists won power in 1949; they transformed Shanghai into a model of the Revolution.