21. May 2021

The Yuanli Pawnshop is a three-story, masonry-timber building constructed in 1932. It is surrounded by 15 meter high and 50 centimeter thick walls with a steel vault in the center of the structure. It's owner Lu Tuanxiao had previously operated several pawnshop in Wuxi, Jiangsu province before expanding to the Shanghai International Settlement. By the 1940s Yuanli had become the largest pawnshop in Shanghai. Today it is a museum and can be visited free of charge on 203 Wuding Lu or in VR on...

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...