太平南路与建康路
MapABC: 太平南路 or 建康路
Getting there: From Xinjiekou take Bus 5, 9, 25, 51 or 163, exit after two stops and walk back to Taiping Nan Lu. Alternatively you can walk from Xinjiekou (1 km).
Other sights nearby: Nanjing 1912 (one block north of the intersection of Zhongshan Dong Lu and Taiping Lu), Confucius Temple (south of Jiankang Lu)
All buildings which are described in this post originate from the first third of the 20th century.
Somehow it’s sad to live in a city with historical value and to get the impression of being ten years too late. According to
Danielson, Nanjing became after 1949 a
living museum (…) as the architecture along large sections of Nanjing’s main streets had changed little since the Japanese occupation of 1937. In 2001, a new building boom started and in May of that year, wrecking teams began razing large parts of these areas for the first time. By the summer of 2002, most of Zhongshan Road bore little resemblance to its former self, with large areas turned into vacant lots and construction sites. A few notable structures still stand, but they are now isolated relics rather than part of a continuous period landscape. (…) Even local residents who live there now seem lost by the absence of previous landmarks. A huge swath of the city’s eastern neighborhoods along Changjiang Lu, from Meiyuan Xincun to Zhongshan Lu, has simply disappeared, as have nearly all the Min Guo [= republican] buildings along Zhongshan Dong Lu and large sections of Zhongyang Lu.
Taiping Nan Lu (太平南路) and a short section of Jiankang Lu (建康路) in the inner city’s Baixia District (白下区) belong to the last roads where you can see how large areas of Nanjing have looked before the demolition has started. Taiping Nan Lu stretches between Zhongshan Dong Lu (中山东路) in the North and Jiankang Lu in the South and is two km long. The architecturally interesting part of Jiankang Lu adds another 500 m to this walk.
If you start in the North, one of the first remarkable structures you see is the building with the house number 140 on your right side. It originates from the first third of the 20th century. As many of the old houses in Taiping Nan Lu, it’s a simple two-storey residential building with some shops in the ground floor. It’s emphasised by some potent vertical lines and a geometrical ornamentation on its façade, both elements of the Art Deco style of the 1920s and 1930s.
If the building still exists, pay attention to the character “拆”, painted next to the bookstore. It is pronounced
chai and means
pull down, dismantle. You will see it quite often during this walk.
Taiping Nan Lu 220 features a Western-Chinese hybrid. The façade with its grey respectively dark orange glazed tiles and the ornamentation between the windows of the first and second floor is Western, but the canopy and the entrance take up elements of traditional Chinese architecture.
The rather shabby building with the house number 223 is Art Deco again (as are those with the numbers 315, 367 and 413). Its three pilaster strips arise to a kind of merlons, thus giving the building a fortified look.
After crossing Hubu Jie (户部街) it’s getting more classical. Taiping Nan Lu 253 features a classical gable with some frisky stucco. 200 m ahead at the opposite side, Taiping Nan Lu 290 combines both: Art Deco and classical elements. The central part of the building steps confidently upwards and is adorned with Corbie steps. It’s clearly Art Deco. The left part presents stucco again.
Its own architectural language speaks Taiping Nan Lu 396: St. Paul’s Church. It was established in 1923 by American Methodist missionaries. The church’s architecture imitates the style of European and American churches in rural areas. The lower section of the church’s walls was built with stones taken from Nanjing’s city walls. When the Japanese invaded Nanjing in 1937, parts of the church were destroyed. From 1938-39 Ernest H. Forster, priest of St. Paul’s, was member of the
Nanking Safety Zone International Committee. In 1943, the church became a base of the Japanese military police. After the defeat of the Japanese the damaged parts were rebuilt. From 1966-76, during the Cultural Revolution, the church served as a factory for optical instruments. The altar was destroyed. 1985 St. Paul’s function as a church was restored. Services in English start Sundays at 10:50 AM, English speaking bible studies Saturdays at 2:00 PM.
Half a block away at the intersection with Baixia Lu is the former office building of the
Bank of Communication Agency, now
Bank of Communication, built in 1933. With its clock tower and its V-shape it’s similar to the buildings facing the intersection of Jiangxi Zhong Lu (江西中路) and Fuzhou Lu (福州路) in Shanghai – which of course are much more elaborate. However, the
Bank of Communication Building can’t compare with that of the
Shanghai Commercial & Savings Bank at the junction of Taiping Nan Lu and Jiankang Lu, built in 1933 too. It’s an Art Deco structure again with prominent vertical lines, a solid tower and windows which look like embrasures. The building has the appearance of a fortress – just perfect for a bank.
Cross Jiankang Lu and turn left. After 70 m you reach a small square. There you find the
Confucius Temple Post Office (夫子庙邮政支局,
fuzi miao youzheng zhiju). Its predecessor was 1897 founded as
Zhenjiang Street Post Office. With this founding postal services in Nanjing started. The office building soon proofed to be too small and was 1922 replaced by the existing building. It was built by British architects in Neo-Renaissance style.
Now go back from where you came. Pass Taiping Nan Lu at your right side and a huge archway at your left side. Keep going straight. When you see a newly erected shopping mall at the opposite side of the street (Nanjing Aqua City, 南京水遊城,
Nanjing shuiyou cheng) take a closer look to the buildings at your side. The houses with the house numbers 6 – 46 form a
continuous period landscape, a whole stretch of untouched republican architecture. The buildings are approximately 100 years old, some years older than those in Taiping Nan Lu. Therefore you find less Art Deco. The resemblance to Shanghai’s French Concession is striking.
As you can see, all buildings are marked with the Chinese character for demolition. A local told me that the demolition will be finished within the next seven months. The plan is to create a superior shopping environment and develop tourism facilities for better exploit of the Confucius Temple’s fake Ming and fake Qing architecture.
In 2003, the
Nanjing Urban Planning Institute designated 134 historic late Qing Dynasty and Republic of China buildings as protected units. In 2004, more than 1,000 buildings built in the Republican Era, mostly in the 1920s and 30s, still existed. This means that less than 15% of these buildings are regarded as worthy of preservation. It seems to be the way how Nanjing deals with its heritage, a tragedy.
You may say that some of the buildings you have seen look shabby and that there is no reason to keep them. This certainly is true, but ask yourself how these buildings would look if they would have been maintained properly during the last decades.
Picture 1: Taiping Nan Lu 140
Picture 2: Taiping Nan Lu 220
Picture 3: Taiping Nan Lu 223
Picture 4: Taiping Nan Lu 253
Picture 5 + 6: Taiping Nan Lu 290
Picture 7 + 8: Taiping Nan Lu 396
Picture 9: Baixia Lu 155
Picture 10 + 11: Jiankang Lu 145
Picture 12: Jiankang Lu 146
Picture 13 - 16: Jiankang Lu 6-46
Picture 17: Taiping Nan Lu 315
Picture 18: Taiping Nan Lu 367
Picture 19: Taiping Nan Lu 382
Picture 20: Taiping Nan Lu 413
Picture 21: Taiping Nan Lu 591
Post scriptum: The demolition of Jiankang Lu 6-46 has started (June 3, 2009).
Sources: 9 (pp. 63 - 65), 10, 11, 4, 2, 12, 13, 14
Last updated: June 3, 2009
