Capital Constructs

On the one hand, there is its status as one of Nanjing’s most popular attractions, with its supreme wooden architecture as backdrop to Buddhist observance, playing the role of nunnery to converts stationed within.  On the other, the crowds are...

A cornerstone of modern Chinese education, blending Western academic traditions with Chinese cultural values, the legacy of Jinling University continues to this day, through the institutions it helped establish and the generations of scholars it educated. With little doubt the...

Intended as a place to worship and consecrate Confucius, Fuzimiao in Nanjing has seen its share of violence, the area around it having gone through ravishing epochs of change. The essence of Qinhuai River scenery and one of Nanjing’s two...

Few others, if any, have been given a funeral procession such as this. Not only was it long, from Zhongshan Wharf in Nanjing’s northwest all the way to Purple Mountain, it was wide. Roads along the entire route were ripped...

“Clang, clang”, goes the level crossing on Chenguang Lu as foot and vehicular traffic give way to an average of 90 enormous freight trains each day. They have just departed, will shortly arrive at, or completely ignore, Nanjing Zhonghua...

Christianity in Nanjing as regards architecture is reflected in the enormous significance of three structures in particular, each remarkable for having survived until this day. Capable of simultaneously accommodating over 1,000 worshipers, Nanjing Christian Mochou Lu Church (南京基督教莫愁路堂; below left) ...

Just as compasses do in China, the statue of Sun Yat-sen in Nanjing’s Xinjiekou that marks the very centre of our City, faces south. Perhaps out of respect for the accepted way of doing things, but more pragmatically so...

Getting a train onto a ferry is a big deal, even today. Apart from the fact that trains are just plain heavy, they require the building of trestle bridges for the embarking/disembarking of locomotives and carriages. All very well,...