The official residence of the French Consulate in Shanghai is at No. 1431 Huaihai Middle Road, and the door is always closed.

Since visa work was delegated to a third-party company, it has rarely been open to the public.

When I was a child, every time I came out of the Shanghai Library and walked on Huaihai Road, I could see sentries on duty at the door.

Sometimes, there are many people lining up at the nearby corner to deliver visas.

The address was vague at the time, and there were a lot of consulates nearby. I only knew that the French Consulate was also in a mysterious high-rise building.

Because I love French literature, I always feel fascinated every time I pass by it, and I also look forward to one day being able to submit my visa here to lead to France.

Stories from the past are always romantic, just like when I got a visa to study in France many years ago. My dad said that I used to take a big ship to study abroad.

At that time, traveling across the ocean for more than a month really gave me the feeling of staying abroad.

Nowadays, everything is modernized and convenient, but there is less imagination.

Without further ado, let’s take a look at the official residence of the French Consulate.

Regarding this house, the information I can search on the Internet is: No. 1431 Huaihai Middle Road, built in 1921, with a construction area of ??804 square meters.

It is an Italian-style garden residence. It was originally a private residence in Barcelona. It was later used by the consulates of Spain and North Korea in Shanghai, and is now the French Consulate General in Shanghai.

Beyond that, there's just mystery.

It coincides with the "hackathon" competition organized by the Shanghai French Training Center, which aims to use high technology to help French learning more effectively.

The award ceremony for this event was held at the official residence of the French Consulate in Shanghai and was open to the public by appointment.

The green iron door finally opened, and a European building with white walls and red tiles appeared in front of me in the autumn colors of November and the warm sunset.

The building is two stories high and is divided into three large areas very evenly.

Entering the main entrance, after the sign-in area, there is the cloakroom and restroom, and then entering the main hall.

The floor height is relatively high, and the interior decoration is made of brown wooden boards, which is very elegant. You can also see the old-fashioned heating tiles that you have seen in France.

It turns out that there was such heating in Shanghai.

But these radiators are probably abandoned now, because another radiator was found to heat the room.

On one side of the main entrance is the podium, with the Chinese and French flags as the background, which is very sacred.

There is also a retro piano in the room. Next to the piano is a small internal staircase that leads directly to the second floor.

However, the second floor was not open today, so we only visited the ground floor.

Going forward from the main hall, let’s call it the “back hall”.

It feels like a living room, and the lighting in this hall is very good, because there is no wall on the other side, instead there are bright floor-to-ceiling windows.

Although the door is closed, you can still clearly see a piece of green in front of you, which is the garden of the official residence.

Let's go back to the main hall. This main hall is completely accessible in all directions.

Each side leads to two rooms.

One side leads to the party buffet area, and there is even a bar further forward.

The other side leads to my favorite study room.

The study is actually a large living room. Different from other rooms, you can see books and paintings everywhere, and the floor is also covered with carpets.

Although it is an official residence, it is also a very warm study.

Taking another look at the collection of books here, of course they are all French books, and they are all French classics. We also discovered the famous French Seven Stars Collection.

Sitting in the study, despite being excited, I felt a little inexplicably nervous, as if I had fulfilled a dream from back then, but the dream was so illusory.

Huaihai Road is paved with sycamores, and official residences are full of vicissitudes of time. Everything is sleeping in a glass of champagne.

(Unfortunately, I don’t know much about architecture and cannot introduce the official residence in detail. I hope the photos in the article can make up for everyone’s imagination.