Nanxiang Twin Pagodas

The Nanxiang Twin Pagodas (南翔寺砖塔, Nánxiáng Sì Zhuāntǎ), also called the Five Dynasties twin pagodas (五代双塔), face each other across a street in Nanxiang, in Jiading District, at the north end of Xianghua Bridge. They are two seven-storey, eight-sided brick pagodas built to look like timber ones, and they stood at the gate of the old Nanxiang Temple.

Nobody knows when they were built. From their architectural features they are placed between the Five Dynasties and the Northern Song, which gives them their second name. They stood outside the temple gate. When the temple burned in 1766 the pagodas survived.

They are small. Each is about 11 metres high on a base of 2 metres, and the bottom storey is under 2 metres across. The brick imitates wood in detail: each storey has eaves above and a balcony with railing, a Buddha niche inside, and four doors alternating with four barred windows. The openings turn a step from one storey to the next.

By 1949 the weathered pagodas were being used as structural support by neighbouring houses. They were listed as Shanghai municipal protected sites in 1962 and again in 1980, and were repaired from 1983 to 1988. The work turned up fallen balustrades, brackets and roof tiles on the ground around them, and identified 36 kinds of brick component. They were not moved, which is why their bases now sit more than a metre below the street, reached by stone steps inside a stone railing.

The temple itself continues as Yunxiang Temple (云翔寺, Yúnxiáng Sì). Sources disagree on its start: a claim made in the Yuan period gives 505, while a gazetteer entry, Wudi zhi houji, gives 839. It took the Yunxiang name in 1700. After war damage it was rebuilt about 70 metres west of the original site and reopened in November 2004.

The pagodas are on the street, so they can be seen from outside; opening arrangements were not checked and no official page was found.