The China Merchants Company Building (No.9)
It was constructed in 1901 by The China Merchants Steam Navigation Company which was run by the Qing Dynasty’s Ministry of Trade. The government had purchased the bankrupt American Russell & Co. in the 1870s, and subsequently built this building on the site of their riverfront garden. The building stands as one of China’s most symbolic and memorable examples of the nation’s early modernization process. It appears fine and delicate, and is the Bund’s unique remaining example of neo-Classical external-corridor architecture of the late Victorian era. Furthermore, it is one of two examples of red-brick construction along the Bund’s row of grey buildings (the other being the South Building of the Peace Hotel). The main three-storey structure is made of brick, stone, timber and steel, enclosing a space of 1,460 square meters. The structure is divided into five bays and supported by eight steel columns and masonry peripheral walls. The original floors were of post-and-beam wooden construction. The external perspective reveals a three-tiered, Neo-Classical style with sloping rooves, with the Eastern Bund-facing external-corridor with Corinthian and Tuscan columns on the second and third floor, and a connecting structure off the south-western corner made entirely of brick and timber. The Eastern facade flanking wings have English Classical Renaissance-styled gables. Granite stone is primarily used in the Eastern facade for the base, as well as the Chinese traditional greenish slate for the eaves and roof.
 
Shanghai Pudong Development Bank (No.12)
Formerly the HSBC Building and the People’s Government of the Municipality of Shanghai Building. Currently it houses the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank. Construction began on May 5, 1921, and completed on June 23, 1923. It was built in the style of neo-classicism in China and designed by the British architecture firm, Palmer & Turner Architects and Surveyors. It has a floor area of 23,415 square meters, and was the second largest building in the world at that time, after the Bank of Scotland building in the United Kingdom. Its exterior adopted a strict neo-classicist design, with a tripartite vertical and horizontal division. In the centre is a dome, the base decorated with a triangular structure imitating Greek temples. Below that are six Ionic columns penetrating from the second to the fourth storey. The main structure is five storeys, the central section seven storeys, with one and a half storey for the basement. The main structure has a steel lattice with brick filling, and a granite exterior. The interior was luxuriously decorated, using materials such as marble and monel. The whole building was fitted with heating and air-conditioning. The main trading hall has eight columns hewn from whole blocks of marble, which was at the time unique in Asia. Behind the main building is a subsidiary building which houses bank offices, safes and vaults.
 
Shanghai Customs House (No.13)
Built in 1927, it is originally named Jianghai Custom House. It is considered as one of the symbols of the Bund together with its sister building, the HSBC Building. The Customs House occupies an area of 5,722 square meters and a floor space of 32,680 square meters with eight storeys. It is in two sections: the eastern section is eight storeys tall and faces the Huangpu River. It is topped by a clock tower, which are 11 storeys or 90 meters tall. The western section is five stories tall, and faces onto Sichuan Road. A reinforced concrete structure was used. The exterior follows a Greek-revival Neo-Classicist design. The eastern section is entirely surfaced in granite, as are the first two storeys of the western section, with the upper three storeys faced with brown bricks. The main entrance has four Doric columns. Eaves are found above the first and second storeys, with a larger one above the sixth floor. Large stone columns penetrate from the third to the sixth storey.
 
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