The Porcelain Tower of Nanjing, part of the former Great Bao'en Temple, is a historical site located on the south bank of external

Qinhuai River The Qinhuai River () is a tributary of the Yangtze with a total length of 110 km. It flows through central Nanjing and is called "Nanjing's mother river". It is the "life blood" of the city. The Qinhuai River is divided into inner and outer river ...

Nanjing Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and the second largest city in the East China region. T ...

, China. It was a

pagoda A pagoda is an Asian tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist but sometimes Taoist, ...

constructed in the 15th century during the

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han peo ...

, but was mostly destroyed in the 19th century during the course of the

Taiping Rebellion The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a massive rebellion and civil war that was waged in China between the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Han, Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. It laste ...

. A modern life-size replica of it now exists in

. In 2010

Wang Jianlin Wang Jianlin (; born 24 October 1954) is a Chinese business magnate, investor and philanthropist. He is the founder of Dalian Wanda Group, China's largest real estate development company, and the world's largest movie theater operator. He previo ...

, a Chinese businessman, donated a billion yuan (US$156 million) to the city of Nanjing for its reconstruction. This is reported to be the largest single personal donation ever made in China. In December 2015, the modern replica and surrounding park opened to the public.

History

The Porcelain Tower of Nanjing was designed during the reign of the

Yongle Emperor The Yongle Emperor (; pronounced ; 2 May 1360 – 12 August 1424), personal name Zhu Di (), was the third Emperor of the Ming dynasty, reigning from 1402 to 1424. Zhu Di was the fourth son of the Hongwu Emperor, the founder of the Ming dyn ...

(r. 1402–1424) and shortly after its construction began in the early 15th century. It was first discovered by the Western world when European travelers like

Johan Nieuhof Johan Nieuhof (22 July 1618 in Uelsen – 8 October 1672 in Madagascar) was a Dutch traveler who wrote about his journeys to Brazil, China and India. The most famous of these was a trip of from Canton to Peking in 1655-1657, which enabled hi ...

visited it, sometimes listing it as one of the

Seven Wonders of the World Various lists of the Wonders of the World have been compiled from antiquity to the present day, in order to catalogue the world's most spectacular natural features and human-built structures. The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World is the o ...

. After this exposure to the outside world, the tower was seen as a national treasure to both locals and other cultures around the world. On 25 March 1428, the

Xuande Emperor The Xuande Emperor (16 March 1399 31 January 1435), personal name Zhu Zhanji (朱瞻基), was the fifth Emperor of the Ming dynasty, reigned from 1425 to 1435. His era name "Xuande" means "proclamation of virtue". Ruling over a relatively ...

ordered

Zheng He Zheng He (; 1371–1433 or 1435) was a Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat, fleet admiral, and court eunuch during China's early Ming dynasty. He was originally born as Ma He in a Muslim family and later adopted the surname Zheng conferr ...

and others to take over the supervision for the rebuilding and repair of the Great Bao'en Temple at Nanjing. He completed the construction of the temple in 1431. In 1801, the tower was struck by lightning and the top four stories were knocked off, but it was soon restored. The 1843 book, ''The Closing Events of the Campaign in China'' by Granville Gower Loch, contains a detailed description of the tower as it existed in the early 1840s. In the 1850s, the area surrounding the tower erupted in civil war as the

reached Nanjing and the rebels took over the city. They smashed the

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

images and destroyed the inner staircase to deny the Qing enemy an observation platform. American sailors reached the city in May 1854 and visited the hollowed tower. In 1856, the Taiping razed the tower to the ground either in order to prevent a hostile faction from using it to observe and shell the city or from superstitious fear of its geomantic properties. After this, the tower's remnants were salvaged for use in other buildings, while the site lay dormant until a recent surge to try to rebuild the landmark.

Description

The tower was octagonal with a base of about in diameter. When it was built, the tower was one of the largest buildings in China, rising up to a height of with nine stories and a staircase in the middle of the pagoda, which spiraled upwards for 184 steps. The top of the roof was marked by a golden pineapple. There were original plans to add more stories, according to an American missionary who in 1852 visited Nanjing. There are only a few

Chinese pagoda A pagoda is an Asian tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist but sometimes Taoist, ...

s that surpass its height, such as the still existent 11th-century

Liaodi Pagoda The Liaodi Pagoda () of Kaiyuan Monastery, Dingzhou, Hebei Province, China is the tallest existing pre-modern Chinese pagoda and tallest brick pagoda in the world, built in the 11th century during the Song dynasty (960–1279). The pagoda stands a ...

Hebei Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, and 0 ...

or the no longer existent 7th-century wooden pagoda of

Chang'an Chang'an (; ) is the traditional name of Xi'an. The site had been settled since Neolithic times, during which the Yangshao culture was established in Banpo, in the city's suburbs. Furthermore, in the northern vicinity of modern Xi'an, Qin S ...

. The tower was built with white

porcelain Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises main ...

bricks that were said to reflect the sun's rays during the day, and at night as many as 140 lamps were hung from the building to illuminate the tower. Glazes and stoneware were worked into the porcelain and created a mixture of green, yellow, brown and white designs on the sides of the tower, including animals, flowers and landscapes. The tower was also decorated with numerous Buddhist images. Fragments of the original tower may exist in the

Calcutta Museum The Indian Museum in Central Kolkata, West Bengal, India, also referred to as the Imperial Museum at Calcutta in colonial-era texts, is the ninth oldest museum in the world, the oldest and largest museum in India as well as in Asia. It has rare ...

, presented by the Geological Survey of India, 7 August 1877.

Gallery

File:Prototype 3D Porcelain Pagoda of Nanjing.png, Artist impression of the Porcelain Tower before its destruction, based on the model displayed in the

Nanjing Museum The Nanjing Museum () is located in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu Province in East China. With an area of , it is one of the largest museums in China. The museum has over 400,000 items in its permanent collection, making it one of the largest ...

.Original Porcelain Tower reconstitution exposed in the Nanjing Museum.
/ref> File:UB Maastricht - Nieuhof 1665 - Toren.jpg, Early European illustration of the Porcelain Tower, from ''

An embassy from the East-India Company ''An embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces'' is a book written by Dutch author and explorer Johan Nieuhof. The book served as a major influence in the rise of chinoiserie in the early eighteenth century. Full title The ful ...

'' (1665) by Johan Nieuhof File:Nieuhof-Ambassade-vers-la-Chine-1665 0789.tif, Porcelain Tower, from ''

'' (1665) by Johan Nieuhof File:Nanking Erlach.jpg, The Porcelain Pagoda, as illustrated in

Fischer von Erlach Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (20 July 1656 – 5 April 1723) was an Austrian architect, sculptor, engraver, and architectural historian whose Baroque architecture profoundly influenced and shaped the tastes of the Habsburg Empire. His infl ...

's ''A Plan of Civil and Historical Architecture'' (1721)

References

External links

* (English subtitle)
''The Closing Events of the Campaign in China''
by Granville Gower Loch. London 1843.
Great Bao'en Monastery, Architectura Sinica Site Archive
{{coord, 32, 4, 49.26, N, 118, 43, 48.78, E, type:landmark, display=title Towers completed in the 15th century Buildings and structures in Nanjing Tower of Nanjing, Porcelain Demolished buildings and structures in China Towers in China Chinese ceramic works Former towers Yongle Emperor Individual pieces of porcelain