Number twenty-three on the Bund is the Bank of China Building, finished in 1937. Among all the buildings on this waterfront it is the only one whose design was led by a Chinese architect. His name was Lu Qianshou, and he ran the bank's own architecture department. The British firm Palmer and Turner worked with him on the structure, but the face of the building is his.
外滩二十三号是中国银行大楼，1937 年建成。这排江岸上所有的楼里，只有它的设计由中国建筑师主持。他叫陆谦受，主管中国银行自己的建筑课。结构上英国的公和洋行参与了，但这幢楼的脸是他的。
Look at the roof first. It is a four-sided pyramid covered in blue-green glazed tile1, the kind you would expect on a hall in Beijing rather than on a bank on the Huangpu. Then come down the facade. The window grilles2 are cut in a lattice pattern taken from Chinese furniture, the stone panels between floors carry ancient coin motifs, and above the main door there is a relief3 of Confucius travelling among the states. The frame underneath is a steel and concrete frame like any other office block. The skin is where the argument is made.
先看屋顶。那是一个四方攒尖顶，铺着青绿色琉璃瓦，这种做法你会以为出现在北京的殿堂上，不会想到黄浦江边一家银行。再往下看立面。窗格是中式家具上取来的棂条纹样，层间石板上刻着古钱纹，正门上方是一幅孔子周游列国的浮雕。底下的骨架跟别的写字楼一样，是钢筋混凝土框架。这幢楼要说的话全写在外皮上。
The building next door is Sassoon House, and there is a story that has followed this pair for eighty years. The bank is said to have planned thirty-four floors. Victor Sassoon is said to have objected to anything rising above his own green pyramid, and the bank is said to have settled for seventeen. Guides tell it, books repeat it, and no document in either archive has yet confirmed it. What you can verify is what your eyes see. The Bank of China stops just below the tip of the Sassoon roof.
隔壁就是沙逊大厦，这一对楼身上跟了八十年一段公案。说是中行原本要盖三十四层，说是沙逊不许任何东西越过他那个绿色尖顶，最后中行收在十七层。导游这么讲，书上这么写，两边档案里至今没有文件坐实。能核实的只有各位眼睛看到的这一点，中国银行大楼的顶刚好停在沙逊那个尖顶下面。
Nineteen thirty-seven was a hard year to finish a building in Shanghai. The war reached the city in August, and the bank moved into an occupied port. That timing is part of why the building matters. By the late thirties Chinese architects had trained abroad, come home and taken on the biggest commissions4 in the country, and this is where that shows on the Bund. Every other building along here was designed for foreign owners by foreign firms. This one answers them, in their own street and at their own scale.
1937 年在上海盖完一幢楼是件难事。八月战火烧到市区，银行搬进的是一个沦陷中的港口。这个时间点本身就是这幢楼的分量之一。到三十年代后期，中国建筑师留学回来，接下了国内最大的工程，这件事在外滩上的落点就是这里。这条街上别的楼都是外国业主请外国事务所设计的。这一幢在同一条街上，用同样的体量，回了一句话。