The former site of the Iron Work Department of Shanghai Toyota Spinning Mill, built in 1921, is located at No.178, Zhongshan Road West. In 1942, the Iron Work Department changed its name to Toyota Machinery Manufacturing Corporation, which later independently became Toyota Machinery Manufacturing Factory. In 1945, Japan was defeated; as an enemy property, the factory was taken over by China Textile Industries Inc of the KMT Government and was renamed as No.1 Machinery Plant of China Textile Industries Inc. In 1950, it became the state-owned Shanghai No.1 Textile Machinery Plant and was renamed as Shanghai No.1 Textile Machinery Co., Ltd. in 2007.
The original buildings remaining at present include: a chimney of a constant temperature workshop that is 35m in height and is one of the earliest buildings using the reinforced concrete material in Shanghai; an office building that is a timber-structured building with two stories, a hipped roof composed of machine-made plain tiles and a 14m hall span; a dining hall that is a timber structured building with one floor, a sloping roof composed of the machine-made plain tiles; a lecture theatre that is a timber structured building with one floor, a hipped roof composed of the machine-made plain tiles; a weaving workshop, the building structure of which adopts the north-transparent sawtooth pattern roofing specially-used in the textile industry; a power distribution room that is of reinforced concrete structure and is equipped with a thermally insulated wall and a air duct that can exhaust air naturally and a large workshop, built in 1964, which is characterized by its roof truss of a large span steel-structured clerestory.