Jiangxi · Rebuilt Twenty-Nine Times for One Piece of Writing
Tengwang Pavilion (滕王阁)
First built in 653, destroyed and rebuilt twenty-eight times since, and standing today in reinforced concrete since 1989. The preface written here in 675 has never needed rebuilding.
Quick Facts
The Short Version
| What it is | A large pavilion on the east bank of the Gan river at Nanchang, on the site of a Tang original |
|---|---|
| Where | Nanchang, Jiangxi, on the riverfront in the middle of the city |
| First built | 653, by a Tang prince, Li Yuanying, whose title gives the building its name |
| This version | Completed in 1989 in reinforced concrete, and by the usual count the twenty-ninth building on the site |
| The design | Based on a scheme drawn up in the 1940s by the architectural historian Liang Sicheng from a Song dynasty painting, rather than from any surviving building |
| Why it is famous | Wang Bo’s preface, written in 675 when he was in his twenties. He died the same year |
| Inside | Galleries of displays over several floors, with performances on some of them, and the river from the top |
| Time needed | An hour and a half. Longer if you stay for a performance |
Why Go
Twenty-Nine Buildings, One Afternoon in 675
1. The preface
In 675 a young man called Wang Bo turned up at a banquet held by the governor to mark a restoration of the pavilion. The convention was that a guest would be invited to compose a piece for the occasion, with the host’s own son-in-law having quietly prepared one in advance. Wang Bo, who was in his twenties and passing through, accepted the invitation and wrote on the spot.
What he produced is one of the most admired pieces of parallel prose in the language, dense with allusion and built around images of the river, the evening and a solitary bird against the sunset. He drowned later the same year on his way to visit his father in the far south. The building has been destroyed and rebuilt twenty-eight times since; the text has been copied continuously and is still taught in schools.
2. What you are actually standing in
The present pavilion was finished in 1989, in reinforced concrete with timber-look cladding, and it is larger than any of its predecessors. Its design came from a set of drawings made in the 1940s by Liang Sicheng, who worked from a Song dynasty painting because no Tang or Song building survived to measure. So it is a twentieth-century scholar’s reconstruction of a painter’s impression of a building nobody alive had seen.
That is worth stating plainly rather than discovering afterwards. It does not make the visit pointless, but it does change what the visit is: you are going to a literary address and a very good river view, not to a Tang building.
The catch. It is a museum inside rather than an old interior, the floors are given over to displays and gift counters, and the crowds funnel up one staircase. Nanchang itself gets few foreign visitors and very little is labelled in English, so without a guide or some Chinese most of the content on the galleries will pass you by. The view from the top and the building seen from outside are the parts that carry regardless.
Orientation
Up the Terrace, Through the Floors, Out to the River
Entry is at the base of the terrace and the route climbs through the floors, each with its own display, to the open galleries at the top. The upper level gives the Gan river, the bridges and the city, and it is the part of the interior worth lingering on.
Outside, the better views are from the garden to the south, where the water and the willows give the composition the old paintings use, and from the riverside walk after dark when the building is lit.
Practical
Things Worth Knowing
Come back after dark
The lighting is genuinely good and the building reads better at night than under Nanchang’s usual grey daytime sky. The riverside walk is free.
Check the performance times
Short music and dance sets run on one of the upper floors at fixed times and are included. They are the liveliest thing inside.
Little English inside
The galleries are almost entirely in Chinese. Read Wang Bo’s preface in translation before you go and the building makes far more sense.
It is a stop on a line
Nanchang sits between Wuhan, Changsha and the Jiangxi mountains. Treat the pavilion as a half day rather than a reason to come.
Timing
When to Go
| Season | The case for | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| March to May | Green, and the garden below the terrace is at its best | Jiangxi spring is persistently wet |
| September to November | The driest and clearest window, and comfortable for the climb | The first week of October is the national holiday |
| June to August | Long evenings, and the night lighting runs late | Nanchang summer is one of the hottest in the country, and the terrace has no shade |
| December to February | Very few visitors, and the lit building against a dark sky is at its best | Cold, damp and grey, with short days |
Context
Why These Three Towers Are a Set
The grouping of Yellow Crane, Yueyang and Tengwang as the three great towers of the south is a later convention rather than anything the builders intended. What the three have in common is that each collected a canonical piece of writing early, and each then became a fixed point in the literary landscape that had to be maintained regardless of how often it burned.
That is a particular Chinese arrangement worth understanding. In much of the world a building is the artefact and the writing about it is commentary. Here the text is the artefact, and the building is the commentary, which is why rebuilding in concrete raises far fewer local objections than a foreign visitor might expect.
The three also read differently against each other. Yellow Crane is a 1985 building moved off its own site; this one is a 1989 building on its original site to a modern design; Yueyang is an 1880 timber structure that has never moved. Seeing them in that order makes the point better than any single one of them can.
Nearby
Other Stops on the Same Trip
Spot · 290 km northwest
Yueyang Tower and Junshan Island (岳阳楼)
The second of the three, and the only one that is a genuine Qing building.
Spot · 340 km northwest
Yellow Crane Tower (黄鹤楼)
The first of the three, at Wuhan, in concrete since 1985.
Mountain · 130 km north
Mount Lu (庐山)
The hill station above the Yangtze that has attracted poets, missionaries and politicians in turn, and the usual second stop in Jiangxi.
Where to Base
Nanchang (南昌)
Nanchang is a fast-train junction between Wuhan, Changsha, Hangzhou and Guangzhou, which makes the pavilion an easy half-day stop on almost any route through the middle of the country. The metro reaches the riverfront.
Few foreign visitors stop here and the city is set up accordingly, which means less English and also lower prices and no queues. One night is plenty unless you are going on to Mount Lu or the porcelain kilns at Jingdezhen.
Experiences
What You Can Actually Do Here
On site · 1.5 hr
The floors and the top gallery
The displays on the way up and the river, the bridges and the city from the open level at the top.
Free · 30 min
The riverside walk after dark
The building lit from the outside, from the embankment, which costs nothing.
Guided · 3 days
The three towers
Wuhan, Yueyang and Nanchang in order, which turns three separate sights into one argument.
Worth a half day if you are passing through, and best seen twice: once inside for the river view, once from the embankment after dark. Read Wang Bo’s preface in translation first, because without it this is a large new building with a good view, and with it the whole thing makes sense.
Plan the Three Towers as One Trip
Tell us your dates and what you are after, and our local team will build the route: Wuhan, Yueyang and Nanchang on the fast line, timed so you see the concrete ones either side of the one that is genuinely old.