Walk the West Bank of the Huangpu at the Bund
Stand at the railing on the raised promenade along East Zhongshan Road and the city splits in two before you. To your west, a mile-long row of early twentieth-century buildings — Gothic, Baroque, Neoclassical, Romanesque, Renaissance, Art Deco — face the river in stone shipped in from Hong Kong and marble from England and Italy. To your east, across the water, the Postmodern towers of Lujiazui in Pudong rise from the opposite bank. This is the Bund, the protected historical waterfront at the centre of Shanghai, and it is best understood as a walk: one mile along the river, buildings on one side, skyline on the other.
The place has a long memory. Before the 1840s it was a muddy lane among tall reeds. After the Opium War it became a British settlement, then the centre of the foreign establishment in Shanghai from the 1860s to the 1930s, a legally protected treaty port lined with banks, trading houses and consulates from Britain, France, the United States, Italy, Russia, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and Belgium, along with the Shanghai Club and the Masonic Club. By the 1940s it housed the headquarters of many of the major financial institutions operating in China. The buildings later changed hands and uses, were gradually returned to financial and hotel use from the late 1970s, and the Bund reopened to the public on 28 March 2010 after a major restoration and traffic reconfiguration. You are walking through that history, not a reconstruction of it.
Read the Facades, Then Cross to the Water
The main feature is the architecture, and it rewards slow looking. Some 52 buildings of various Western classical and modern styles stand west of the road. Among those you can pick out as you go:
- The former Telegraph Building at No. 7, a Victorian Gothic Revival pile of 1908 with lancet windows, pinnacles and Romanesque-style rounded arches.
- The former Jiang Hai Custom House at No. 13, built in reinforced concrete in 1927, its clock modelled after Big Ben.
- The former Bank of Communications Building at No. 14, Art Deco, completed in 1948, with a central tower and black granite entrance.
- The former Nishin Navigation Co. building at No. 5 (1925) and the Italian Renaissance Revival former Zhaoshang Bureau at No. 9 (1901), with its rusticated lower storey and upper-storey loggias.
- The Asia Building at No. 1, originally the McBain Building, which housed the Shanghai offices of Royal Dutch Shell and Asiatic Petroleum Company.
- The Shanghai Club at No. 2, once the principal social club for British nationals in Shanghai and since 2010 the Waldorf-Astoria Shanghai Hotel.
- The American Club on Fuzhou Road, built in the American Georgian Style between 1923 and 1925, with bars, a billiard room and a rooftop garden.
Then turn to the river. The promenade runs along a tall flood levee built after typhoon flooding, which now stands some ten metres above street level — the reason the view opens up as it does. Near the Nanjing Road intersection stands the only bronze statue along the Bund, of Chen Yi, Shanghai's first Communist mayor. At the northern end, in Huangpu Park, is the Shanghai People's Heroes Memorial Tower, a tall abstract concrete tower erected in 1993. The park is also home to the Bund Historical Museum. At the far north, the 1908 Waibaidu Bridge — China's first all-steel bridge — crosses Suzhou Creek and connects Huangpu with Hongkou.
Time Your Visit to the River's Rhythm
The Bund changes character through the day, and the hour you choose shapes the visit. Come in the morning and you share the promenade with locals doing tai chi. Come at night and the Pudong skyline opposite puts on a light show, roughly from early evening until about ten. Come late and the crowds thin to the sound of the river, with convenience stores still open nearby. The northern end of the Bund is quieter and gives a wider panoramic view down both banks; Waibaidu Bridge is a good vantage point for taking in the whole sweep. Allow a good stretch of time rather than a quick pass — the architecture is spread over a full mile, and the pleasure is in walking it slowly, reading facades on one side and watching the skyline on the other.
The highlight not to miss is the crossing itself: take the pedestrian ferry across the Huangpu to Pudong. It is very cheap on foot and gives you the historic waterfront from the water, with the modern towers ahead of you. From the Pudong side you can look back at the Bund, visit the skyscrapers of Lujiazui, or eat in the more accessible restaurants there. The Bund Sightseeing Tunnel, an underground light-and-sound attraction, is dated by comparison — the ferry is the better crossing.
Eat Off the Promenade, Then Walk to the Old City
Some of the city's top eateries are on the Bund itself, and restaurants with views of the evening light show require booking ahead for window or terrace seats. For a cheaper, more local meal, head a few blocks off the waterfront: xiao long bao, Shanghai's soup dumplings, are better there than at the promenade's tourist spots, and you should be careful of the hot soup inside. Hotpot is another easy option, with broth chosen at the table and meat and vegetables cooked in front of you; some places include a noodle-pulling show.
The Bund sits within Huangpu District, and several of Shanghai's main sights are close by. Nanjing Road East runs from the Bund to People's Park as a busy pedestrians-only shopping strip, and its side streets and alleys show ordinary residential life. About fifteen minutes' walk away are Yu Garden and its surrounding bazaar, with traditional architecture, restaurants, tea houses and a museum on nearby Shanghai Old Street. People's Square, with the Shanghai Museum and the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum on opposite sides, is a short ride or a longer walk inland. If you want the full view back over the Bund, the observation deck of the Shanghai World Financial Center in Pudong looks directly at it.
Start With a Morning on the Promenade
Plan your visit around a single, simple idea: arrive in the morning when the promenade belongs to tai chi practitioners, walk the mile of facades from Yan'an Road north to Waibaidu Bridge, cross the Huangpu by ferry in the afternoon, and come back for the skyline at night. Everything you need — the architecture, the river, the food, the old city — sits within walking distance of one stretch of road.