Shanghai started repairing the 46-year-old Shanghai Exhibition Center in West Nanjing Road yesterday, Wenhui Daily reported.

The center was closed and would be reopened next year.

Efforts will be mainly taken to stabilize the old construction and to preserve its original outlook, officials said.

The Russian-style construction covering 93,000 square meters was determined too limited in space and have a problem of sinking. The central building has sunk nearly 2 meters.

About 60,000 square meters will be repaired, including 42 exhibition halls, more than 100 offices, theatres, restaurants, coffee bars.

First, pillars inside will be broken up for experts to learn what on earth has led to the severe sinking, official said, and then proper measures will be taken to make the construction solid.

Facilities insides will also be updated.

It's the largest scale of repair the exhibition has ever received since it was built in 1955.

Shanghai began to consider renovation options for the exhibition center in 1999 to freshen up its fading glory.

Officials declared that a scheme, which has once raised most attention of the public, is not applied this time.

The idea was to lift the exhibition center by 8 meters, generated by Jiang Huancheng, the chief designer of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower.

Jiang says the levitation is needed to give the 110-meter-tall tower more visibility, add exhibition space and shore up its crumbling foundation.Simply put, his plan is to jack up three buildings in the exhibition center complex, construct a new base underneath and then lower the structures back into place.The job would cost more than 300 million yuan (US$36 million) and take about two years.

Jiang and the engineers in his office have been working on the plan for more than a year.

(Eastday.com.cn 06/30/2001)