Ming Nanjing, 1420
Reconstructing Nanjing in the eighteenth year of Yongle
Ming Nanjing, 1420 reconstructs the city at two scales: a bird's-eye view of Nanjing and a closer view of the palace axis. Read together, the images show how geography, architecture and political order were assembled into a single view of a city that no longer survives.
The Question Behind the Work
A reconstruction is built from evidence, comparison and informed guesswork.
The city map brings together surviving sites, written records and knowledge of related buildings. It also fills gaps so that streets, walls and roofs can be seen as a continuous whole.
Those parts should remain distinguishable. Viewers need to know which structures are documented, which are based on comparison and which remain uncertain.
Following the Research
From the whole city to the palace axis
The portfolio presents the completed images, but not yet the bibliography, base maps or evidence notes behind them. Adding that record would make the reconstruction easier to assess and use.
The whole city in one view
The bird's-eye view connects the palace city with neighborhoods, walls, lakes, waterways, hills and ceremonial sites. Political order and natural geography appear within the same field.
A closer view of the palace axis
The palace-axis plate names gates, halls, roofs and flanking structures in architectural detail. It helps the viewer find their way through the complex, while making documented and inferred elements look equally certain.
From an Idea to a Form
How can the map make its sources visible?
A source key could divide the map into three levels: documented, inferred through comparison, and completed for visual continuity. Where sources disagree, more than one version can remain visible.
The same care is needed beyond palaces and walls. Official records preserve institutions and elite spaces more readily than workshops, markets and homes. Missing evidence should be marked as missing rather than filled without explanation.
A reconstruction should show both what is known and where interpretation begins.
The Work
Closing Note
Let the map show how it was built
Every reconstruction closes gaps in the historical record. Ming Nanjing, 1420 is strongest when those choices remain visible: what comes from documents, what comes from comparison and where the record falls silent. A source record beside the map would let viewers see both the city being reconstructed and the decisions behind its reconstruction.