Its main frontage, an open quadrangle with an elaborate central tower, faces Yan'an Road, today the main east–west artery across central Shanghai, while its secondary façade, a colonnade, faces West Nanjing Road, one of the premier retail and commercial streets of Shanghai.

By the time of Hardoon's death in 1931, the garden included within its grounds a theatre, a pagoda, a stone boat, a school, a university and an academy of classical Chinese language and culture.

[2] The building was designed by Sergey Andreyev, Chen Zhi, Wang Dingzheng and Cai Xianyu.

It resembles the main building of the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition (VSKhV) in Moscow and the Admiralty in Leningrad.

In 1956, the building hosted its first political meeting – the first conference of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.

It forms the centrepiece of the main, southern façade of the complex, and is set back from the street with an expansive square.

Corridors to the east and west of the central foyer lead to two wings which sweep around to form two sides of the open square at the centre of the main frontage.

Two quadrangles lie on either side of the main hall, surrounded by further exhibition and conference space that were formerly also part of the Industry wing.

While interior decorations have been overhauled over the years, much of the original relief sculpture work is still visible in various parts of the complex.

This was removed following the Sino-Soviet split, the space now taken up by a bronze statue of a worker holding up a tangle of flowing ribbons.