04. June 2021

Bank of Communications on the Bund No. 14. The modern Art-Deco style building, combined with Chinese elements, was designed by Austro-Hungarian architect C. H. Gonda. Construction was interrupted in 1937 because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and it was only completed by 1948 making if the last classic building to be erected on the Shanghai Bund. The Bank of Communications was founded in 1908 and emerged as one of the first few major national and note-issuing banks in the early days of the...

16. May 2021

Designed by Austro-Hungarian architect C.H. Gonda and inaugurated in February 1926, it was lauded as Gonda’s “triumph in style of architecture new to Shanghai.” BEA was founded in Hong Kong in 1918 with the idea to blend East and West, essentially by embracing the style of a Chinese, family-run bank but also adopting modern accounting and banking methods. Already in 1920, BEA opened its first branches in Shanghai and Ho Chi Minh City. Today it remains the largest independent local Hong...