A pair of towering structures, shaped like the Great Wall and crowned with giant numerals "1945" and "2025," have attracted much attention during the grand gathering marking the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War in Beijing on Wednesday.
Japan surrendered on Sept 2, 1945, signing the Instrument of Surrender to China and other Allied powers. China celebrated the victory the following day. In 2014, the country legislated to designate Sept 3 as the Victory Day of War of Resistance.
"The structure itself weighs 312 tons, the steel counterweight is 347 tons, and the curved curtain wall is about 1,400 square meters on both sides, about 700 square meters on one side. There are eight digits in the year number, four on each side. The lightest is about 1.5 tons, and the heaviest is close to three tons," said Gao Shudong, project manager of the construction project general contracting department of Beijing Urban Construction Group.
According to construction workers, the pre-installation and debugging work of the structure was completed at a sports center in late July this year. In early August, the main steel frame structure of the structure was split into multiple modular units and transported to Tian'anmen Square for re-installation.
"We cannot conduct welding operations at the Tian'anmen Square so after we pre-assembled the structure, all the modules were bolted together, just like we build blocks," said Pan Hao, head of the production management group of the engineering and construction department of the service support and square activity command of the V-day gathering.
A millimeter-level deviation in the structure may trigger a chain reaction and even cause greater displacement in other parts. For this reason, when designing the construction plan, technicians pre-installed a fine-tuning device behind the aluminum curtain wall to solve the deviation problem during reconstruction.
"We adjust it through later processes, such as some adjustments to the flange bolting. If the adjustment below causes changes in the structure above, we will have to adjust the relationship between each curtain wall and the steel structure to ensure that the curtain wall is flat," said Pan.
Giant grandstands bearing historical anniversary years offer perfect view of V-Day parade
