卢湾体育馆

Luwan Gymnasium is at 128 Zhaojiabang Road in Huangpu District, near Dapuqiao and Ruijin Hospital in central Shanghai. The present building covers 7,000 square metres of land with 20,730 square metres of floor area and 3,500 seats, and was completed in 1997. Its history goes back to the Auditorium, a jai-alai fronton built in 1929 on Avenue du Roi Albert (now Shaanxi South Road) at Avenue Joffre (now Middle Huaihai Road); that hall was 56 metres long and 13 metres wide and held more than 2,000 spectators. It was placed under the Luwan district sports authority in 1958 and renamed Luwan Gymnasium in 1974 after the new Shanghai Indoor Stadium opened. The old building was demolished in 1992 to make way for metro construction and the Huaihai Road commercial redevelopment, and the replacement was built on Zhaojiabang Road. The new hall has an airship-like profile split into two volumes, a characteristic piece of 1990s district-level sports architecture in Shanghai. It can stage basketball, volleyball, tennis, handball, badminton, table tennis, five-a-side football, weightlifting and martial arts, as well as mass sports meetings and large performances; in everyday use the main floor is laid out with 12 badminton courts. It was the home arena of the Shanghai Sharks basketball team, which won the CBA championship there in 2002. The men's team moved out in 2009, and in 2010 the Shanghai men's and women's volleyball teams moved in. The 1983 Fifth National Games weightlifting competition was held here, where Wu Shude set a world record in the 56 kg snatch. Dapuqiao station on Line 9 and Jiashan Road station on Line 12 are within walking distance, and many bus routes run along Zhaojiabang Road.