The Institutions Around a Circle: Dalian’s Zhongshan Square
A hotel, a bank dome and a civic roofline reveal how successive powers made a modern port legible in stone.
Zhongshan Square combines an inherited radial street plan with buildings raised at different moments in Dalian’s history. Its European-looking façades do not identify a single national origin: several prominent buildings were commissioned under Japanese colonial rule. The former railway hotel, banks and civic offices make the square a useful place to distinguish architectural style from the political and commercial purposes it served.
A hotel, a bank dome and a civic roofline reveal how successive powers made a modern port legible in stone.