Imperial Bank of China Building

No. 6 the Bund is where China’s first modern bank opened. The Imperial Bank of China (中国通商银行, Zhōngguó Tōngshāng Yínháng) was founded here on 27 May 1897 by the Qing official and industrialist Sheng Xuanhuai (盛宣怀, Shèng Xuānhuái). The Gothic-revival building that stands on the site, with its pointed gables and granite face, was put up for the bank and is counted among the oldest surviving buildings on the Bund.

The bank was a deliberate import of Western practice. It was China’s first limited-liability bank, the first Chinese bank to issue its own banknotes, and the first to employ foreign managers; its internal rules were copied from the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank. It never had the full backing of the court, and by 1901 nearly three quarters of its lending went to foreign firms.

Before the bank arrived the site held a three-storey brick-and-timber house in the early colonial style that had served as an auction house. English Wikipedia records the American trading house Russell & Co. (旗昌洋行, Qíchāng Yángháng), whose land also lay under Nos. 7 and 9, as the firm that first commissioned a building here.

The present structure was designed by the British firm Morrison & Gratton (玛礼逊洋行, Mǎlǐxùn Yángháng), whose partner F. M. Gratton is the architect Chinese sources name. Most Chinese accounts date it to 1906, when it was rebuilt for the bank; other sources give 1897 or 1907, and one English account suggests an older core. The style is a Gothic-revival version of an English town hall, four storeys high and faced in granite, which is why its roofline of pointed gables stands out between the classical fronts on either side.

After the fall of the Qing dynasty the bank’s English name became the Commercial Bank of China. In 1935, during the silver crisis, it was reorganised as a joint government and private bank, and Du Yuesheng (杜月笙, Dù Yuèshēng), the Shanghai gangster, became its chairman. In 1945 the bank moved next door into No. 7, which it bought. It was merged into the state banking system in 1952.

The city listed the building as an Outstanding Historical Building in 1994, under the name 中国通商银行, and the 1994 register recorded Huaxia Bank as the occupant. In 1996 it was included in the Bund Buildings group protected at the national level. The building was renovated in 2006 and by 2019 held brand shops and restaurants. There is no public interior to visit beyond whatever those tenants open.