As a trailblazer of after-school education in the People’s Republic of China and crowned as the “First Palace in China”, the China Welfare Institute (CWI) Children’s Palace was founded in 1953 by Soong Ching Ling, one of the founders of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Honorary Chairwoman of the PRC, and the founder of CWI, whose name was inscribed by Chairman Mao Zedong and site was personally selected by Premier Zhou Enlai and Mayor of Shanghai Chen Yi to be located in the Marble Mansion.

Over the past seven decades, the CWI Children’s Palace, carrying the collective memory of several generations, has adhered to Soong Ching Ling’s earnest anticipation to “Give children the best”, enlightening and nurturing a multitude of personnel in culture, art, science and technology for the socialist modernization drive.

Standing rock-firm as a landmark of the CWI Children’s Palace, the Marble Mansion was built in 1924 as the private residence of British-Jewish businessman Sir Elly Kadoorie. In 1989, it was listed as a modern cultural relic protection building in Shanghai, and was rated as a key cultural relic unit under state protection in 2019. The golden Marble Mansion was finally reopened following the start of the refurbishment in 2019, the official construction in 2021, and the acceptance in 2022, brimming with children’s laughter once again.

The protective refurbishment project of the Marble Mansion of the CWI Children’s Palace, in strict accordance with the requirements of the National Cultural Heritage Administration and the principle of “not changing the original state of cultural relics”, adopted traditional techniques to restore the key parts of the heritage, removing safety hazards while enhancing its resistance to fire, earthquakes, and lightning. Cutting-edge technology was also vigorously leveraged to empower the cultural heritage conservation, with high-tech tools such as the 3D laser scanner and drones used for comprehensive data collection of the building, and the endoscopy for the detection of protective components, the internal structure, and damage status, thereby providing a solid scientific basis for the restoration effort. In this way, traditional processes worked in synergy with scientific innovation to extend the life of the cultural heritage with minimized intervention technically.