Nanjing City, Jiangsu, China

13. The Nanjing Beamless Hall

One of the most interesting buildings in Nanjing is the Beamless Hall. In 1381, when Hong Wu was building his tomb, he had a temple on the site torn down and rebuilt a few kilometers to the east. Of this temple only the Beamless Hall (so called because it is built entirely of bricks) remains. The structure has an interesting vaulted ceiling and a large stone platform where Buddhist statues used to be seated.

Wuliang Hall, or Beamless Hall, was constructed in 1831, and is 22-meters-high and 53.8-meters wide. This hall enjoys a high reputation for its special architectural techniques. It has three archways on the front and rear sides respectively. The structure was built with bricks from the bottom to the top entirely, without a piece of wood or a single nail. Thus it was called Wuliang Hall, since Wuliang means beamless.

It happens that the hall originally enshrined Amitayus (Buddha of Infinite Life) whose Chinese name pronounces the same with Wuliang. Later in 1928, the hall was turned into the memorial hall of soldiers sacrificed in the War of Northern Expedition (1926-1927). More than 30,000 soldiers were enshrined.