Capital Constructs

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,...

Nanjing South Railway Station perhaps might have never become a reality. And at the heart of the matter was a 3-year-long disagreement between the Ministry of Railways and the Nanjing urban planning authorities.  It was in December of 1994 that...

Many will be familiar with the impressive data set accompanying Nanjing’s Zhonghua Men. The biggest citadel on Earth still in existence, capable of housing a garrison of 3,000 soldiers and likely the most complex structure of its time. But that...

They were the largest of their kind in the Far East at the time. Today, telescopes far and wide falling under the umbrella of Nanjing Purple Mountain Observatory continue to make significant contributions to astronomical observation. No wonder it...

Hearsay has it that the dwelling was a birthday gift from Chiang Kai-shek to his wife, Song Meiling, hence the name. Indeed, there is much to support the claim. With 34 white marble railings, 34 lampposts and Chiang’s proposal...

With Nanjing as capital of China prior to Beijing, so too it was home to the embassies of many countries during the Republican era. Some are well preserved, still standing strong to this day and open to the public,...

Swan Lake, Macbeth, Tosca, Don Quixote and Cats are among the globally renowned productions to have been staged in the Jiangsu Grand Theatre, known formally as the Jiangsu Centre for the Performing Arts. And those well known productions have been...

In early 2001, China’s General Office of the State Council officially issued the “Letter on Cancellation of the Restriction on the Alternate Hosting of the National Games by Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong”, a decision that quickly received positive responses...