This apartment building (now known as Changde Apartment Building) was built with a reinforced concrete structure in 1936 at Hede road (present day No. 195 Changde Road) with eight stories. It occupied a land of 580 square meters with a building area of 2,663 square meters.

The building with a shape of concave has three apartments in each floor with a spacious living room in each apartment. And fireplace was built in each apartment and small repositories and bath rooms were attached for bed rooms. The kitchen was equipped on the west porch and the living room and bed room each had a balcony. The entire lanky corridor on the west serves as both safety passageway and the serving place. Four doublelayer apartments were built at the ground floor and interlayer and the two layers were connected by narrow stairs. The elevator room and water tank were in the eighth floor.

This building property originally belonged to Italy and majority of the residents of this building were personalities from middle and upper circles. The woman writer Eileen Chang once lived in this building. Chen Danyan, also a woman writer, once described the house lived by Eileen Chang in an article of her Love Affairs in Shanghai:"The house of Eileen Chang at a busy crossroad is an old building which is painted with a flesh color standing up in the busy area of Shanghai under the clear sky but not blue." Eileen Chang moved to Hong Kong during 1950s and then settled down in the United States. She died in her house in New York before Mid-Autumn Festival in 1995. Even today many people go to Changde Apartment Building to see Eileen Chang's house and have pictures taken there.