HSBC Building, Shanghai

The HSBC Building at No. 12 on the Bund in Shanghai was, at the time of its completion, the largest bank building in the Far East and the second largest in the world after the Bank of Scotland Building in Edinburgh. It is now home to the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank.

HSBC first opened its Shanghai branch in 1865 on the ground floor of the Central Hotel, near the corner of the Bund and Nanjing Road. As the bank’s business grew, its premises became too small, and it later purchased the former Foreign Club building at No. 12. The present structure was built between 1921 and 1923 and served as HSBC’s headquarters in Shanghai until 1955. During World War II, it was occupied by the Japanese Yokohama Specie Bank and later by the Shanghai Municipal Government.

Designed by Palmer & Turner, the building is Neoclassical in style, with lavish interiors of marble and Monel metalwork. The highlight inside is the octagonal entrance hall, where visitors should look up to see the famous mosaic dome. Around the dome are eight large mosaic panels representing cities where HSBC had major branches: Shanghai, Hong Kong, London, Paris, New York, Tokyo, Bangkok, and Calcutta. Each city is shown through allegorical figures, river gods, local symbols, and recognizable scenery.

The Shanghai panel includes Mazu, the protective sea goddess, with figures representing the Yellow River and Yangtze River, set against the old HSBC Building and Customs House. The Hong Kong panel shows a crowned female figure with the Union Jack, alongside figures representing the Pearl River and the South China Sea. Tokyo is represented through figures symbolizing learning, progress, and science, with Mount Fuji and the Imperial Palace in the background.

Other panels use similar symbolic imagery to present HSBC’s global reach and the commercial world of the early 20th century. Between the panels runs a Chinese saying meaning “All men within the four seas are brothers.” The mosaics were covered over in the 1950s, rediscovered during restoration in 1997, and remain one of the Bund’s finest surviving interiors.