These grand old buildings on the Bund reflect the city's history. Photo: Yang Hui/GT

The grandeur of the Bund facing off against the sleek towers of the Lujiazui skyline across the Huangpu River is as good a metaphor as you might find for the changes the city has seen over the past 100 years. The mixture of neo-classical, art-deco and revivalist styles has stood witness to war, revolution and rejuvenation. Having survived a turbulent century, the Bund is a source of pride among Shanghai's residents, and often the first port of call for tourists.

The widespread protectiveness for the Bund was demonstrated recently by the response to news that one of the nearby buildings - the former Mistubishi HQ built in 1914 at 94-102 Guangdong Road - had been partially repainted by its current leaseholder.

The resulting outcry led to a cessation of work on the building, which has been classified as an "immovable cultural relic" by the government. The building's occupant is now in talks with authorities and restoration experts as to how to undo the damage.

The Global Times recently took a stroll along the Bund to ask expats their views on building preservation, and whether they think Shanghai has got it right.

Jacob, teacher, the US

I've been living in Changzhou (in Jiangsu Province). It's a regular, functional industrial city, with box-style architecture and it's all concrete. Everything looks just about the same. Every once in a while you'll see historical architecture, which has very obviously been torn down and rebuilt a time or two. I think they've done a good job on the Bund. I'm from Winston-Salem. Salem was an old Moravian city, and preservation is excellent there, as the old town has been very well-preserved. While it's true that a lot of stuff does get knocked down in Shanghai, from what I have observed, Shanghai and Xi'an both do an excellent job when it comes to preservation. They seem to listen to regular people who don't want things to be torn down. Whereas in other places, authorities might say "no, this needs to be a McDonalds or a Starbucks." There are also cases like the Forbidden City, where it's obviously been repainted over and over again, and you can see how thick the shoddy paint job is in some places. Lijiang is another example - it's billed as a historic Chinese city, but you look at it and you can tell many of the buildings are newly built.

Stephanie, teacher, the US

I think it's a fair assessment to say they're doing a good job with preservation on the Bund. I'm from LA, so building preservation is not such a big issue there - it's all pretty new.

As to whether it's right or wrong when things get torn down or changed, it depends on the reason they do it. If it's due to building codes and safety reasons, I can kind of understand, but if they slap some paint on just to make it look newer, then it's less defensible. In the case of the Dongtai Road antiques market, I can kind of understand why they took it down.

Tony, artist, the US

I'm surprised at how many things are preserved here in Shanghai. I live in Taipei, which doesn't have very much historic architecture at all. There's a few tiny buildings in the old historic center. But large portions of the city have been built since the 1970s. The older parts they've started preserving, and a temple.

I also went to Tianzifang on this visit, which I would classify as historic reuse. I think it's important to preserve both the buildings built by foreigners and the traditional Chinese stuff as it's all part of the fabric of the city. There obviously was a lot of foreign intervention in the earlier parts of the city's history, but it's also important to preserve the Chinese perspective.

Jon, manager, the Netherlands

In Europe there are so many old buildings. It is important to preserve them, but there needs to be a balance between doing that and making the towns and cities modern. So it is a constant fight and sometimes you can understand that some old things must go. However, it is easy to be too relaxed about it and, before you know it, there will be hardly any old buildings left. It is good to see that Shanghai has laws to protect these buildings. I have walked along the Bund and I went to the former French concession and I was surprised there were so many old buildings. I remember once going to Venice where they have to carry out lots of restoration work on those old buildings. Sometimes so as not to disappoint visitors, if they are doing work on a building with scaffolding, they will hang a giant picture of the building to cover up the work and to try to fool the eye. It is a nice gesture!

Veronica, tourist, the US

I think they could have done a better job of preservation in Shanghai. The skyscrapers are great and all, but I do like the preservation of the old stuff. I love these buildings on the Bund. If you go somewhere like the Propaganda Poster Museum (the Propaganda Poster Art Centre), you can see pictures of Mao's armies marching down the street and in the background there are these same buildings. I just feel it's really historic. A lot of things are disappearing though. They've done a good job, but I wish they'd done a better job.

Sally, human resources, the UK

I think they've done a splendid job of maintaining the buildings along the Bund. I haven't noticed the new paint job on the building in question, but I hope the damage can be repaired. I see they have a plaque system here in Shanghai like we do in London to preserve old buildings. As long as they enforce it here as vigorously as they do in London, then the buildings here should be safe.