Customs House and HSBC Building on the Bund

Two neighbouring buildings in the middle of the Bund waterfront. The building of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation with its large dome was finished in 1923 to a design by the firm Palmer & Turner and was in its day considered the most expensive structure in the Far East: a granite colonnade, an octagonal vestibule and a mosaic ceiling with views of the eight cities where the bank had branches.

Two bronze lions cast in England lie at the entrance; the originals were taken off to a museum long ago, and copies have stood in their place since the end of the nineties. In 1955 the city government took over the building and held it for forty years, after which it passed to the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank; the mosaic, painted over in the sixties, was uncovered during that same restoration.

Next to it stands the Jianghaiguan Customs House, built in 1927, the work of the same firm: its clock tower with chimes is the main landmark of the waterfront. The mechanism was ordered in England on the London model, and its striking carries several blocks away.

In 1966 the Westminster chimes were replaced by the tune "The East Is Red", and the former striking was brought back in 1986. The customs service occupies the building to this day, so people rarely get inside.

Address

East Zhongshan No. 1 Road, Shanghai

On the map