The next turn of the wheel can be seen in Mr. Wilson's Custom House, also on the Bund, begun after the HSBC building and completed in 1927.

WSJ: Touring Asia's Art Deco Gems in Shanghai and Napier, New Zealand

They've even let a new member into the club: The Peninsula Shanghai hotel, which bookends the northern curve of the Bund, was the first new building here in six decades.

FORBES: Escapes

Other modern citizens of the world crowd into Three on the Bund, a 1916 Beaux Arts building that has been gutted and redesigned into a glamorously minimalist space by Michael Graves.

FORBES: Escapes

One of the clearest examples of the Shanghai Deco style is the old Bank of China headquarters building next to the Peace Hotel on the Bund.

WSJ: Touring Asia's Art Deco Gems in Shanghai and Napier, New Zealand

"It's not cheap, but the location is good, " she says of the apartment in a high-rise building in a residential district north of the Shanghai Bund.

WSJ: Income-to-Housing Price Gap Narrows in China