The Present
The present Pavilion of Prince Teng was built according to the drawing of famous architect Liang Sicheng,and was completed on 8 October 1989; now a landmark of Nanchang. The building is of reinforced concrete structure, but decorated in faux-Song Dynasty style. It is 57.5 metres tall and has nine stories. The building has a total floor area of 13000 square metres.
The building sits atop 12-metre tall concrete platform, which is intended to symbolise the now-destroyed ancient city wall. A stainless steel tablet at the entrance is engraved with a calligraphy work of Mao Zedong.
The building mainly serves tourism purposes. Apart from internal decoration, attractions include a theatre staging simulated period musical performances, and displays of reconstructed ancient instruments. There are some restaurants and souvenir shops. The streets around the pavilion have been designed to conform with its style. This area has become the centre of Nanchang's antiques trade.
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Famous quotes containing the words the present and/or present:
“As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the causes of all past changes in the present invariable order of society.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There are no such oysters, terrapin, or canvas-back ducks as there were in those days; the race is extinct. It is strange how things degenerate.... I passed, the other day, the deserted house of Mrs. Gerry, which I used to think so lordly. It stands alone now amid the surrounding sky-scrapers, and reminds me of Don Quixote going out to fight the windmills. It should always remain to mark the difference between the past and the present.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)
“We shall be better prepared for the future if we see how terrible, how doomed the present is.”
—Iris Murdoch (b. 1919)
“It is very considerably smaller than Australia and British Somaliland put together. As things stand at present there is nothing much the Texans can do about this, and ... they are inclined to shy away from the subject in ordinary conversation, muttering defensively about the size of oranges.”
—Alex Atkinson, British humor writer. repr. In Present Laughter, ed. Alan Coren (1982)