Bank of Taiwan Building

The Bank of Taiwan Building (台湾银行大楼, Táiwān Yínháng Dàlóu) at No. 16 the Bund was built for a Japanese-owned bank and is now a branch of China Merchants Bank. Chinese Wikipedia calls its Greek-temple front of four Ionic columns unique on the waterfront.

The Bank of Taiwan was founded in 1899, after Taiwan passed to Japan, and opened branches elsewhere in Asia to support trade. It set up in Shanghai in 1911. For years it rented an older building on this corner that belonged to HSBC, then bought it. That earlier house had four storeys of brick and timber in the colonial veranda style, and was designed by Morrison & Gratton (玛礼逊洋行, Mǎlǐxùn Yángháng). Its gables were judged too weak for a bank, and it was pulled down in 1924.

The replacement was designed by Lester, Johnson & Morriss (德和洋行, Déhé Yángháng), the firm founded in Shanghai by the British developer Henry Lester, and built by the contractor 项茂记营造厂 (Xiàngmàojì Yíngzàochǎng). Sources disagree on when it was finished. English Wikipedia and a University of Maine guide to the Bund put it at 1924. Chinese Wikipedia says work began in 1924 and ended in 1927.

The frame is reinforced concrete, with four storeys on a site of 969 square metres. English Wikipedia describes a mix of Western and Japanese elements; Chinese Wikipedia calls it modern Japanese Western style. The four Ionic columns stand on the Bund side. Their capitals are unusual: straight key patterns take the place of the curled volutes, and the other three sides have a row of plain pilasters. The building looks heavy at the base because it began as three storeys, with a mezzanine added to make four; the top two floors are much lower than the bottom two.

After Japan’s surrender in 1945 the Farmers Bank of China moved in. In May 1949 the Shanghai Military Control Commission took the bank over, and the building was renamed 工艺大楼 (Gōngyì Dàlóu), the Handicrafts Building. A municipal handicrafts import-export company worked here before China Merchants Bank took over the premises.

The city listed the building in 1994, in the second batch of Outstanding Historical Buildings, as no. 2A006. The register names the original owner, 台湾银行. It is a working bank branch, so the Bund front is the part to look at.