Tengwang Pavilion

The Prince Teng Pavilion was first built in 653 by a Tang prince on the bank of the Gan river, and it would be a footnote had the young poet Wang Bo not attended a banquet here in 675 and composed a preface on the spot, a piece of parallel prose so admired that it has been memorised by students ever since and has kept the building's name alive through twenty-eight destructions by fire, war and flood. The current pavilion, the twenty-ninth, was completed in 1989 in reinforced concrete to a Song-style design by the architectural historian Liang Sicheng, nine levels of it, with performances of Tang music and dance staged inside and views over the river from the upper floors.

History

The pavilion was first built in 653 by Li Yuanying, a younger brother of Emperor Taizong of Tang, made Prince Teng in 639 and governor of Nanchang in 652, as his town residence on the Gan River. When a later governor rebuilt it, local scholars gathered to write about it, and Wang Bo's Preface to the Pavilion of Prince Teng made it known across China to this day; it was destroyed and rebuilt 29 times over the centuries, the last old building, of the Tongzhi era, was lost in 1926, and the present nine-storey pavilion was built on the old site in 1989 to a plan by Liang Sicheng (Wikipedia, Pavilion of Prince Teng).

The main sights

• The nine-level tower - the 1989 reconstruction to a Song-style design.
• The Wang Bo preface - the text displayed in calligraphy through the building.
• The Tang performances - music and dance staged on the upper floors.
• The river view - the Gan and Nanchang's skyline from the top.

When to go

March to May and September to November; Nanchang summers are among the hottest in China. Performances run to a daily schedule. Evenings light the tower and the riverfront.

Practical notes

The building is a 1980s concrete reconstruction, not a historic structure. Its significance is literary and largely inaccessible without the Chinese text. Entry is charged and the interior is exhibition space.

Nearby

The Gan river runs below; Poyang Lake lies north.

Key facts