Tina Kanagaratnam/Shanghai Daily news

The former Hongkong and Shanghai Bank building, now the headquarters of the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, is the most eyecatching example of monumental architecture on the Bund.- Shen Kai/Yu Le

The Hongkong and Shanghai Bank building was built to dominate the Bund — and more than 80 years after it first opened its doors, it still does. Tina Kanagaratnam explores the extravagance and the fables of the “finest building east of Suez”.
In 1920, when Hongkong and Shanghai Bank Chief Manager A.G. Stephens commissioned the bank’s new Shanghai headquarters, his brief was simple and to the point: “Dominate the Bund!”
When travelers arrived by ship and their first sighting of the city was the Bund, the neoclassical building crowned with its dome would have been one of the first sights that attracted the eyes. Eighty-odd years later, it is hard not to think of Stephens’ decree when you look at this stately building, now the headquarters of the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank.
Even with all the distractions of glitzy modern Shanghai —skyscrapers rising over it from behind, Pudong brashly flaunting its shiny baubles across the way — the building still dominates the Bund.
For architects Palmer and Turner (whose Bund masterpieces include the Bank of China building and the Peace Hotel), the goal was to create an edifice that would convey the strength and security of a solid financial institution. The bank was to be a place where men would feel safe depositing the great fortunes that were to be made in old Shanghai; it also had to be a place prestigious enough to suit the egos of these soldiers of fortune-turned-respectable gentlemen and taipans.
The result is this half-a-block-long edifice, with a “well-proportioned dome that fitly crowns the edifice,” in the words of Ronald Macleay, Britain’s minister to China in the 1920s, quoted by F.L. Hawk Pott in “A Short History of Shanghai.”
The opening of the bank, on June 23, 1923, was “one of the most important events in the commercial world (that year),” according to Macleay. He went on: “The building, which had taken two years for its erection, in size and architectural beauty is probably the finest commercial house in the Far East.”
Hawk Pott described the scene on opening day: “When he (Macleay) opened the gates, a vast crowd poured into the building, indicating the great place occupied by the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank in the interests of the commercial world of the Far East.”
The Hongkong and Shanghai Bank had come a long way since it was established in Hong Kong in 1864 and Shanghai the following year.
Just two decades after the “Treaty of Nanjing” had opened Shanghai to foreign trade and carved the city into concessions, opium traders were making fortunes so massive that several of the companies that made them then remain players on the China coast today. HSBC took advantage of the opportunity, and in a decade, had accumulated considerable assets.
Astutely, they expanded their services to include customs duties and the salt tax, which were the lifeblood of the economy at that time.
By 1920, it was time to commission a building worthy of the bank’s reputation. The Bund, “the Wall Street of Asia,” was the natural location, and to dominate was the natural instinct. “Spare no expense,” added Stephens. And indeed, almost every piece of the building was crafted overseas and shipped to Shanghai at enormous expense.
A pair of bronze lions, the most enduring symbol of the bank, guards the entrance. Named “Prudence” and “Security” presumably after the qualities most wanted in a bank, one roars aggressively, while the other smiles inscrutably.
Sculptor Henry Poole cast four bronze lions — two for the branch in Hong Kong and two for Shanghai — and then he broke the mould. Mythical lions guarding entrances are common in China, but these Western lions are a much rarer sight. Yet he found a special place in the heart of Shanghai passersby, who loved rubbing the tail, paws, nose and teeth of the beasts until the bronze was polished off to reveal the gleaming metal underneath.
A rumor began spreading, in fact, that the lions were actually crafted of solid gold.
Maybe as a result of the rumor — but more likely because of the vagaries of war — the lions disappeared during the Japanese occupation. It was assumed that they had been melted down for cannon fodder, a fate suffered by other Bund statues. There were sporadic sightings of the lions languishing in the bank after the war, but it was not until the 1980s that they surfaced again, mysteriously languishing in the basement of the Shanghai History Museum. Perhaps a well-wisher had saved them somehow from destruction, so that they would survive to protect another generation of Shanghai fortunes.
The lions that guard the bank today are replicas, but no one seems to mind. They are still rubbed, photographed and clambered upon, and treated as if they had never left. As for the originals, one is on display at the Shanghai History Museum.
A beautifully crafted original revolving door leads to the octagonal entrance lobby and its spectacular domed mosaic ceiling. As breathtaking and intricate as a mosaic on a Florentine church, the center of the dome features the figure of the Sun God Apollo, symbol of the British Empire upon which “the sun never sets.”
Eight panels around the sides depict the cities in which the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank had branches in 1923, and the eight words of the bank’s motto: “Within the four seas all men are brothers.” The cities depicted were the financial capitals of the day, and reveal a great deal about how little things have changed in the world of money and power: HSBC’s eight banks were located in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Bangkok, Calcutta (then capital of British India), London, Paris, New York and Tokyo. The 12 signs of the zodiac ring the dome, and the panels on the wall illustrate, in Latin, 16 lofty qualities including prudence, truth and temperance.
The mosaic dome shines all the brighter because for half a century, it was completely hidden. The changed circumstances during the post-Liberation period led Hongkong and Shanghai Bank to move out in 1955, at which time it became City Hall.
Someone — no one knows whom — worried that the imperial overtones in the mosaic might be offensive and, artistic value notwithstanding, thus might not survive. So the mosaic was thickly plastered over, and remained hidden until 1998, when the US$12 million renovations for the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank began.
Beyond the lobby, four magnificent marble columns, hewn from a single piece of marble, support the 2,000-square-meter banking hall. Each column weighs more than seven tons, and is among only six solid marble pieces of this size in the world — the other pair is in the Louvre museum, Paris.
In the southwest corner of the bank stood a separate bank for Chinese customers, who entered using the separate entrance on Fuzhou Road in old Shanghai. The massive door, inscribed with HSBC, still stands. The space was calculated to appeal to the Chinese aesthetic, with its palette of bright reds and golds, colors traditional Chinese associate with good fortune. Today, the red and gold are gone, but the Chinese character “fu” (prosperity) remains in the trim and on the walls in this area, as do the Chinese designs in the ceiling molding, cornices and ventilation covers.
Shanghai, in the 1920s, wasn’t all business, and neither was the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank. Under the domed rooftop, on the fourth floor, was the Royal Air Force (RAF) Club of Shanghai, where the flyboys played.
Today, it remains empty, although there are persistent rumors that potential investors are bidding for the right to turn it into a private club once again.
It was said that the seal of the RAF and images of World War I aircraft once festooned the floor, but none were found during restoration.
Perhaps they were never there — or perhaps this was one HSBC relic that did not survive.