Longhua Pagoda
Octagonal Song-dynasty brick pagoda of seven storeys, saved from demolition by locals during the Cultural Revolution.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Longhua Pagoda in Shanghai opens in 1966, with a tractor and a taut rope at the base of the tower and Red Guards set on pulling the seven-story pagoda down. It traces the pagoda back through a 1954 restoration that stripped away later additions, its 977 rebuilding by a lord of the Wuyue kingdom, and a legend of an even older shrine raised by the warlord Sun Quan. Look up at the swastika-shaped railings and the small bells swinging on the eaves, forty meters above you.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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