80 Caoxi Road N.

80 Caoxi Road N., Xujiahui Treasure Book Tower, was constructed in 1848, and the new building was constructed in 1931, and now is listed in the Second Group of Excellent Historical Architecture of Shanghai and the sites of historical interest and cultural relics under the protection of district government of Xuhui.

The old building is a two-storey house with brick-wood structure. The layout of rooms implies combination of Chinese and Western culture. The stack room on second floor was originated from the design of Big Book Collection House of Vatican Catholic Church, and contains more than sixty thousand literature in Western language from early Sixteen Century. The stack room on the first floor contains traditional thread-bound Chinese books, and was originated from the idea of Chinese classical saying from the Book of Change of the Zhou Dynasty, which says “the sky and water are one and the earth is divided into six”. This design is the only one in China, which is extremely precious to be reserved.

This house previously was the premise storing books taken by missionary of Society of Jesus from abroad, now is the foreign language old literature center of Shanghai Library.