The Nanjing Yangtze Rive Bridge Memory

The whole book restores the unique materials, temperament and connotation of that era. Through the re-editing of historical materials and images, we try to use the bridge as the entry point to restore the most authentic China to the world.

In the 1950s and 1960s，China was in the cold war period of the world-level two-tier structure and the great change period of Sino-Soviet relations. It was in the double dilemma of trying to defeat nature (the Yangtze River Tianzhu) and history (the poverty and weakness). In the self-reliance period of efforts to get rid of the Soviet restraint, the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge inevitably stood in the position of miracle and became a symbol of the highly symbolized China that was irreplaceable in that historical period.

From a contemporary perspective, the designer has given the book a sense of nostalgia in the historical era, while avoiding the simple listing of historical materials, thus realizing the interactive transformation and vivid contrast between the two clues of history and modernity.The red plastic cortex of the cover truly reproduces the irreplaceable China that was very rich and identifiable 50 years ago. In the era of building bridges, almost all of China's books were made of plastic covers. These books accurately conveyed the unique and collectivist Chinese spirit of that era just as same as the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge.

The design of this book seeks to reproduce the “truthful and simple power of a monument” in the process of “taking a socialist road different from the Soviet Union.” Thereby, it evokes the Chinese memory of the “all the imaginable things have almost a bridge figure”.

Text from qqqqdesign.com

Dimensions: 131× 186 mm
Format: Softcover, Slipcase
Year: 2019
Language: Chinese
Design: Qu Minmin & Jiang Qian
Publisher: Jiangsu Phoenix Fine Arts Publishing