Leaning Tower of Shanghai

By Queuebot in Architecture on Mar 13, 2009 at 8:27 pm

Surely you’ve heard of the Great Wall of China, but how about a Leaning Tower? Turns out, China’s Huzhu Pagoda may just be the most tilted building in the world, beating out the Leaning Tower of Pisa …

The Huzhu pagoda leans over Tianma village in Songjiang suburb, its seven-story structure so lopsided it seems in imminent danger of toppling over altogether.

It was built in 1079 — well before Italy’s famous Leaning Tower of Pisa — by Gen. Zhou Wenda to house five Buddha relics given to him as a reward by Emperor Song Gaozong of the Southern Song dynasty. But from the start, it began to tilt.

“Part of the foundation was built on rock, part of the foundation was built on mud,” explains Yang Kun, who works at the Songjiang Museum and has studied the pagoda’s history.

Link [Update 3/13/09: reader beware: the website (NPR.org of all places) may have trojan in a rogue ad]

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.


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  1. Johnny Cat
    Mar 13th, 2009 at 9:57 pm

    Hooray Entropy!

    At least Pisa has the benefit of unforeseen Earthly circumstances. Building on mud is just stupid.

  2. Gauldar
    Mar 13th, 2009 at 11:03 pm

    The linked website is contaminated, my AVG detected a trojan, probibly in an advertising link. Another reason why I don’t like marketing companies… sloppy and disease ridden like a $2 whore.

  3. Alex
    Mar 13th, 2009 at 11:51 pm

    Thanks for the heads up, Gauldar. I think it’s in their ad server (it’s NPR.org, after all)

  4. pax
    Mar 14th, 2009 at 4:00 am

    I don’t understand how they could’ve overseen this! I mean, it was built BEFORE Piza, leaned MORE than Pisa… WHYYY?!

  5. Padraig
    Mar 14th, 2009 at 9:05 am

    Well, I don’t think it was ever claimed the leaning tower of Pisa is the most tilted. Particularly seeing as the church tower of Suurhusen in Germany is a lot more tilted, with a tilt of 5.19° (as registered by the Guinness society). In comparison, the leaning tower of Pisa only has a tilt of 3.97°.

    Tower homepage: http://www.kirche-suurhusen.de/


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