The Commercial Bank of China Building

　　The Commercial Bank of China Building (The Bund) is a bank building constructed by the Commercial Bank of China at No. 6 on the Shanghai Bund. It was the first bank founded by Chinese people, established on May 27, 1897, with Sheng Xuanhuai as its founder. Originally, No. 6 on the Bund was an auction house, a three-story colonial-style building. In 1906, it was rebuilt under the design of F.M. Gratton from the British firm Messrs. Morrison, with a construction area of 4,541 square meters. The architectural style is Gothic-inspired civic hall design, featuring a row of pointed spires at the top. The building was constructed in 1906. At its inception, it referenced the management practices of the British-owned HSBC. At its founding, the state granted it the privilege to issue silver dollars and taels.

　　It was the first bank founded and operated independently by Chinese people, and also the first bank in China to issue paper currency. Its head office was located in Shanghai, at what is now No. 6 Zhongshan East 1st Road. The building was constructed in 1906. In its early days, it adopted the management methods of the British-owned HSBC. In the early years of the Republic of China, the bank changed its English name to "Commercial Bank of China" and became a purely commercial bank. In 1936, it was officially reorganized as a "government-private joint operation" bank. After that, the bank came under government control and, along with the Siming Commercial Savings Bank, the Chinese Industrial Bank, and the Chinese Merchandise Bank, was known as the "Little Four Banks." After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the government took over the bureaucratic capital portion of the bank and restructured it as one of the public-private joint venture banks.

　　The Commercial Bank of China Building, also known as the Yuanfang Building, is located at No. 6 Zhongshan East 1st Road in Shanghai. In 1897, Chinese people raised funds independently to establish the first bank — the Commercial Bank of China. It is now the location of Hong Kong’s Parkview International Enterprise Limited.

　　The building was originally a three-story brick-and-wood structure in an East Indian architectural style. In 1906, the old building was demolished and rebuilt under the design of the British firm Messrs. Morrison. It became a faux four-story brick-and-wood structure with an exterior in the British Gothic style. The fourth floor of the building features five pointed spire roofs, which originally also had crosses. The third and fourth floors have small spires. The fourth floor has pointed arch windows, while the first and second floors have typical Gothic-style tracery windows. The decoration carries hues of European religious architecture, with blue and red bricks inlaid and numerous slender columns outlining the walls. Later, during maintenance, the walls were plastered with cement, and the original appearance was lost except for the framework. The entrance is flanked by Roman colonnades. The ground and second floors feature floor-to-ceiling long windows with arched frames, symmetrically aligned. The upper floor has a sloped roof and a row of pointed windows. The southern side of the fourth floor is a terrace, offering a fine view of the Huangpu River.

　　The significance of this nearly century-old European-style building goes far beyond its historical and artistic value. It can be said that it marked the inaugural chapter in the history of China’s finance.

　　The Commercial Bank of China was China’s first bank, situated on the Bund, making its importance self-evident. The Bund is an iconic area of Shanghai, with its building complex rich in the essence of Western architectural design from the Renaissance period. A collection of buildings with distinct styles, unique shapes, and individual character form a veritable “Exhibition of World Architecture,” creating a harmonious, varied, and dazzling architectural landscape along both sides of the Huangpu River.

　　When Shanghai opened its port, the Bund was merely a desolate riverside beach overgrown with weeds and reeds, with a footpath trodden by the sweat of the coolies hauling boats along the shore. Over the past hundred years, through the invasion of foreign concessions and the economic and cultural exchanges between China and the West, the Bund once gained worldwide attention as the “Wall Street of the Far East.” That series of grand and unforgettable buildings also left behind many historical stories, full of nostalgia.