Yellow Crane Tower

4 min read

Bordering on the Yangtze River and crouching on the top of the Snake Hill, the Yellow Crane Tower enjoys the fame of “the First Scenery under Heaven”and is listed as one of the three most famous towers on the south bank of the Yangtze River. Its cultural significance led to its being made the symbol of Wuhan City.

Up to now, the Tower has a history of over 1,700 years. According to records, it was originally built in 223 during the Three Kingdoms Period by Sun Quan as a watchtower for his army due to the ideal location. As such a famous tower, it is normal that many legends are created as to why it was built. One of the most popular legends goes like that the Tower used to be a wine-shop opened by a Mrs. Xin. One day,a Taoist monk, in order to thank the woman for her favor of free wine, drew a magic crane on the wall and ordered it to dance on hearing claps.

Since then, thousands of people came to see the spectacle and the wine shop was always full of guests.10 years later, when the Taoist monk revisited the wine shop, he played the flute and then rode on the crane to the sky. In order to memorize the supernatural encounter and the monk, Mrs. Xin built a tower here named Yellow Crane Tower.

Legends are legends and are created for entertainment. To build a tower in such a place at the wartime was obviously for military purpose. The military function of the Tower, however, had gradually been forgotten and when in Tang Dynasty, it was enjoyed mainly asa picturesque location for celebrities and poets to get together, treat and meet friends, enjoy the beautiful scenery and make merry and compose poetry. Many great poets in the past dynasties such as Cui Hao, Li Bai, Bai Juyi, Jia Dao, Lu You visited the Tower and wrote hundreds of poems and scores of writings in praise of the magnificent Tower. It was estimated that up to the Tongzhi Reign of the Qing Dynasty, as many as 300 poems about the Tower had been found in the historical literature, in which “Yellow Crane Tower”written by Cui Hao,a famous poet of Tang Dynasty made the Tower well known throughout China. It was these poems that made the Tower so renowned and induced for people to visit. Later, the story about the great poem Li Bai’s giving up composing poem after reading “Yellow Crane Tower”by Cui Hao brought the Tower greater fame.

Originally built at a place called Yellow Crane Rock projecting over the water on Snake Hill over 1,700 years ago, the Tower was destroyed many times in successive dynasties, and was rebuilt time and again until 1884 when it was for the last time reduced to ashes. The present tower is the result of four years’ construction beginning in 198 1. The Tower,51.4 meters high, five-storied with yellow glazed tiles and red pillars, overlapping ridges and interlocking eaves, is reconstructed on the basis of the one designed during the Tongzhi Reign of Qing Dynasty, but more magnificent than the old one. Modern construction technology was applied to the construction of the Tower and it was built under the framework of reinforced concrete and with imitation wood surface. The ground floor of the new is 30 meters wide in each side and the top floor is 18 meters wide in each side. The appearance of the Tower is the same regardless of the direction it is viewed from.

In the halls of the Tower there are many pictures, portraits and wall-paintings. On the wall of the first floor, there hangs a wide painted porcelain picture Cloud and Yellow Crane which depicts clouds, rivers and cranes to represent a romantic mood in the heaven, with a 7-meter long couplet hung on the column located on each side of the picture. On the second floor, the main wall hangs an inscribed poem written by Yan Bojin which records the historical development of the Tower and anecdotes of celebrities. Two wall paintings on each side of the poems are Sun Quan Building the City and Zhou Yu Hosting Friends with the former illustratinghow the Wuchang City and the Tower were built one after another and the latter reflecting the activities held by celebrities in the Tower during Three Kingdoms Period. The third floor mainly shows poems written to praise the Tower in different dynasties. Poems composed by Cui Hao, Li Bai and Bai Juyi are extracted and displayed here. The hall on the fourth floor is divided into several smaller halls, which hosts paintings drawn by famous artists for visitors to appreciate and purchase. On top of the Tower,a fabulous panoramic view of the Yangtze River is presented and so are some other wall paintings.

Outside the Tower, there are a group of auxiliary buildings such as bronze yellow cranes, memorial, gateways, corridors and pavilions, which adds more charm to the Tower.

The Tower has different architectural features in different dynasties, but all magnificent and individualized. Compared with Yueyang Tower and Tengwang Tower, the horizontal design of Yellow Crane Tower is four-faced and octangular which, according to ancient architecture culture, has complex symbolic and ethic meaning. Seen vertically, each floor with yellow upturned eaves seems to have been designed to resemble a yellow crane spreading its wings to fly, making the Tower vigorous but exquisite, varied and beautiful.