Across the river
Begin with the Huangpu itself. The water is the link between the buildings around you and Shanghai's life as a port. The contrast between the two banks is a starting point for questions about development, land and the image a city presents to the world.
Take the photograph, then ask what sits outside it: the people working in the buildings, the movement along the water and the decisions that brought different kinds of development to different sites.
Along the facades
Look at the former HSBC building and the Customs House together. Compare their scale, entrances and rooflines. Without knowing a style name, you can ask how an institution uses a building to communicate permanence and authority.
Continue toward the Peace Hotel and notice how the sequence changes. Keep the dates and identities of individual buildings separate; the Bund is an accumulation, rather than one design made at one moment.
Back into the streets
The route toward Yuanmingyuan Road and Suzhou Creek makes the waterfront feel more like part of a city. Look for changes in street width, the relationship between buildings and pavement, and the ways older properties are used today.
The most useful question may be: what does preservation keep, and what does a new use change? It lets a famous view become a conversation about a living place.