HSBC Building

HSBC Building

HSBC building refers to the HSBC building in Shanghai, China. It is located at No.12 Zhongshan East 1st Road, the Bund of Shanghai, also known as the city government building. It was built in 1925 and today is the headquarters of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank. In the 1990s, HSBC contacted the Shanghai municipal government to buy back the building, but in the end, it failed because of the price. Apart from its magnificence, the HSBC building is also a building full of historical sense. The building has been used by HSBC, the municipal government and Pudong Development Bank.

brief introduction

The building of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation originally refers to the branch building of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation in Shanghai from 1923 to 1955. It is located at No. 12, Bund, Shanghai, also known as the municipal building. Today, it is the headquarters of the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank. The building was launched in May 5, 1921 and completed in June 23, 1923. It is considered to be the most outstanding masterpiece of modern Western Classicism in Chinese mainland. The designer of the building is Palmer Turner architects and surveyors. At the beginning of its establishment, HSBC was located at the intersection of Nanjing on the Bund, which is the former site of the South Building of the peace hotel.

history

In 1864, HSBC was founded in Hong Kong. It was jointly organized by the top ten foreign banks in China, including British, American, French and German, such as Swire, Sassoon, Jardine, Qichang and chanchen. Some Chinese also took shares. Later, due to the conflict of interest, all the other shareholders withdrew and all the shares were owned by BCC.

In April 1865, the Shanghai Branch was established in Shanghai. The Shanghai Branch was founded on the Bund of Nanjing Road, the former site of today's Huizhong hotel. It is a small three storey British style building.

In 1874, due to the increasing business volume, the buildings were not enough. The house and lawn of the Western Club in the south of the customs were purchased, and a three story building was built, that is, on the Bund of Fuzhou road. The year after its opening, a financial storm broke out in London, and other British banks in Shanghai were hit to varying degrees. However, HSBC avoided the storm, and its business has been developing smoothly since then, and its capital has snowballed. At that time, HSBC established many branches all over the world, but they all focused on seeking the biggest economic interests in China. Shanghai branch plays an important role in its deposit, loan, investment and international exchange business. According to the history of HSBC: "Britain's interests are mainly in the Yangtze River Basin, and Shanghai is the port for the concentration of products in this basin Although the head office of HSBC is in Hong Kong, generally speaking, the Shanghai branch undertakes more business. " Shanghai branch is the jurisdiction Bank of HSBC in the mainland. It governs all branches in the mainland and is the hub of fund allocation.

In 1921, it was built on the Bund. Today, this 7-storey building, covering an area of 14 mu, is boasted by the British as "the most luxurious building from the Suez Canal to the Bering Strait in the Far East". It was built in 1923 and is located at No. 10-12, Zhongshan East 1st Road, the Bund of Huangpu District, showing its abundant funds. In the financial market of Shanghai at that time, HSBC had great control power, and there was a huge amount of gold and silver in its treasury. Because of its important position in Shanghai's foreign exchange market, HSBC is qualified as a listed bank in the foreign exchange market.

Before 1935, HSBC quoted the foreign exchange rate at 9:30 a.m. every business day, which quickly spread all over China and became the basis for gold trading price and some import and export commodity markets. The larger British enterprises in Shanghai, including Jardine's group, Swire Group and Sassoon group, and the four big trusts of Yizhong, Asia, benemen and China soap, all have close credit relations with HSBC. HSBC is also the main bank for the Chinese government to repay its foreign debt and indemnity. The foreign debts borrowed by the Qing government from Britain, Germany, France and Russia, and the large-scale loans and xinchou reparations of the five banking groups in the early Republic of China were remitted to five banks, including HSBC, every year. Since 1916, HSBC has also obtained the right to take custody of China's domestic debts on behalf of the general tax department. From 1853 to 1949, before the founding of the people's Republic of China, China's customs power was controlled by Britain, the United States and France except during the period of Japanese invasion of China. The general tax department was always held by the British, indicating that China's national finance at that time was controlled by outsiders. If the Chinese government wants to pay the balance of customs duties and salt taxes, it needs the approval of foreign banking groups. In this way, the tax balance accumulated in HSBC becomes a huge sum of money that the bank can mobilize.

In 1932, the balance of deposits of HSBC was as high as 930 million Hong Kong dollars, which is close to half of the total deposits of all walks of life in China.

Since 1937, Japan launched an all-round war of aggression against China. After occupying the coastal ports, it changed the customs collected by HSBC to Yokohama Zhengjin bank in Shanghai. In World War II, HSBC's business plummeted.

After the Pacific War broke out at the end of 1941, the Japanese occupied the Shanghai concession, and HSBC was forcibly taken over by Japan. After the victory of the Anti Japanese War, it resumed business. At this time, in the pattern of world power, the United States has surpassed Britain. In China, the power of commercial banks in the United States has expanded, and HSBC, a once glorious financial empire, has only the afterglow of sunset. After the founding of new China and before the reform and opening up, HSBC was one of the only two British banks in Shanghai. Together with Macquarie Bank, it moved to Lanxin building on Yuanmingyuan Road to operate the foreign exchange business designated by the Chinese government.

In 1955, HSBC withdrew from Shanghai and rented another office in Lanxin building on Yuanmingyuan Road. The building is home. The Shanghai municipal government moved in and renamed it "Shanghai Municipal People's government building" for short. In 1956, the vice building was changed into Shanghai Municipal Archives.

In 1990, HSBC contacted the Shanghai municipal government to buy back the building, but it didn't come true because of the price.

In 1991, the Shanghai Branch of HSBC was allowed to operate a comprehensive foreign exchange business.

In December 1996, the bank became one of the first nine foreign banks approved to operate RMB in Shanghai. At present, the Shanghai Branch of HSBC has been relocated to the first floor, No.1 Pudong Avenue, Pudong New Area.

No. 12, Zhongshan East 1st road is currently used by Shanghai Pudong Development Bank. Shanghai Pudong Development Bank opened in January 1993 as a joint-stock commercial bank. The bank has set up 10 branches in Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Ningbo and Suzhou. The building of HSBC (now Pudong Development Bank) is between Hankou Road and Fuzhou road. It is adjacent to the customs building in the north and Fuzhou Road in the south.

In 1997, Shanghai municipal government withdrew the building, and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank acquired the right to use the building through replacement. The murals of the building were rediscovered in the renovation project.

In May 2000, HSBC moved its China headquarters to Pudong, Shanghai.

evaluate

HSBC is known as "the most exquisite building from the Suez Canal to the Bering Strait in the Far East", with a construction area of 23415 square meters. It is the largest bank building in the Far East and the second largest bank building in the world, second only to the Bank of Scotland building in the UK. It is still recognized as the most beautiful building in the Bund complex.

architectural style

HSBC building adopts rigorous neoclassicism facade composition, and the appearance can clearly show the horizontal and vertical three section division of neoclassicism. In the center is the dome, the base of which is a triangular mountain flower imitating the Greek temple, and then there are six Ionian columns running through two to four floors. The main body of the building is five stories high, the central part is seven stories high, and the basement is one and a half stories high. The main body of the building is a steel frame structure, filled with bricks and pasted with granite stone.

The interior decoration quality of the HSBC building is very elegant. Marble, brass and other decoration materials are used, and the technology is excellent, with heating and cooling devices. The eight pillars of the business hall were made of whole marble, which was the only example in Asia at that time.

The back of the building is a sub building with bank office, treasury and warehouse, which is inferior to the main building.

The HSBC building is a classic style building. The plane is nearly square, covering an area of 9338 square meters and a construction area of 23415 square meters. Both the floor area and the building area occupied the first place of the Bund buildings at that time. The main building has 5 floors, 7 floors in the middle, 1 floor underground, and the first floor is surrounded by mezzanine. The central axis of the building is the main gate and the dome above the main gate, with strict symmetry on both sides. The main facade is divided into 5 horizontal sections and 3 vertical sections. There are six copper gates with delicate flower decoration, which are of Roman stone arch style. A pair of high and low cylindrical lamps and a pair of bronze lions are set on the left and right of the ticket door. The large stone block is used as the external wall veneer, and is laid with wide joints. Six Ionic columns are used in the middle of the middle section of the 2nd to 4th floors, of which two rows are double columns, and the stones attached to the wall are laid with fine joints. The circular dome above the fifth floor is a copper frame structure, which becomes the symbol of the building.

At the front door, there are three copper cast revolving doors with glass doors on both sides. Enter the gate, is the octagonal hall, above is the dome. From the floor to the top, it is about 20 meters high. It is divided into upper and lower layers. There are 8 marble columns in the lower layer, and each side has a larger ticket door. The upper wall and dome are inlaid with large color mosaics. There are 8 paintings on the wall, each of which is 4.3 meters wide and 2.4 meters high. The contents of the picture are the buildings and offices of HSBC branches in Shanghai, Hong Kong, London, Paris, New York, Tokyo, Bangkok, Calcutta and other eight cities

Chinese PinYin : Hui Feng Yin Hang Da Lou