The Harbin People's Flood Control Victory Memorial Tower, also known as the Flood Control Victory Memorial Tower or the Flood Control Memorial Tower, is one of the municipal cultural relics protection units of Harbin. It is located in Daoli District, Harbin, Heilongjiang Province. In 1957, Harbin faced the threat of a major flood. Local residents worked to build embankments and successfully held back the flood. Government authorities decided to build a memorial tower on the Songhua River embankment to commemorate the event. The top and body of the tower contain human figures and reliefs, respectively, depicting scenes of resistance against the flood. The design plan underwent several revisions during construction. The memorial tower was completed in 1958 and became one of Harbin's landmark buildings. It narrowly escaped destruction during the Cultural Revolution. Later, the Flood Control Memorial Tower underwent several rounds of repairs. In 1995, it became a municipal cultural relics protection unit of Harbin, and in 1997 it was visited by Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
History
Construction process In 1957, a major flood occurred on the Songhua River, threatening the safety of Harbin. Residents of Harbin worked to build embankments and successfully held back the flood. To commemorate this event, the Harbin Municipal Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and the Harbin Municipal People's Government decided to build a memorial tower on the Songhua River embankment.The memorial tower cost 127,000 yuan and was built by the Harbin Second Construction Engineering Company.Harbin Second Construction Engineering CompanyConstruction of the memorial tower began in 1958.Construction of the memorial tower began in 1958. The municipal government widely solicited opinions on the location of the memorial tower, resulting in three proposals: the intersection of Central Street and the axis of the road on top of the embankment; the top of the slope of the Songhua River embankment; and a plan in which the lower colonnade of the tower would be aligned with the edge of the embankment-top road, with the tower body placed close to Central Street. After repeated discussions, Harbin mayor Lü Qi'en decided to adopt the third proposal.After the site was selected, the issue of the tower's orientation arose. Since construction of the surrounding colonnade was about to begin, the responsible personnel built one fewer column on each side so that the orientation could later be adjusted without affecting the construction schedule. Later, Lü Qi'en personally inspected the site and decided that the front of the memorial tower should face Central Street. During the construction of the memorial tower, designers needed to make plaster molds for the sculptures on the tower body. This required clay with good viscosity that would not deform or crack after drying, and fire clay fully met these requirements. To ensure that the demand could be met, the responsible unit bought up all the fire clay available for purchase in Harbin, buying more than 7,000 kilograms of it, which temporarily caused a shortage.After the sculptures were completed, the remaining fire clay was transferred to the infrastructure department for the production of refractory bricks, easing the shortage of clay.In addition, the exposed-aggregate finish on the columns of the memorial tower's circular corridor required white cement. At the time, neither the Harbin Cement Plant nor the Mudanjiang Cement Plant produced white cement, and neither was willing to produce a small quantity separately. The responsible unit therefore sent personnel to Suzhou Cement Plant to purchase five tons of white cement, which was transported by air to Harbin._
After completion The Harbin People's Flood Control Victory Memorial Tower was completed in 1958, although the exact completion date is disputed. One account gives October 1, while another says it was completed on the eve of National Day. Its inauguration ceremony was held on September 6, 1960.on September 6, 1960. During the subsequent Cultural Revolution, Lü Qi'en was subjected to criticism and struggle, and the memorial tower nearly suffered destruction.In 1966, a "rebel group" from a school in Harbin broke into the Harbin Urban and Rural Construction Committee three times and questioned whether the memorial tower contained an image of Lü Qi'en.Wang Lisheng, chief engineer of the committee, worried that the memorial tower might be destroyed, and firmly denied this. He pointed out that even if the figure on the memorial tower looked similar to Lü Qi'en, it was merely coincidental, and that Lü Qi'en, as mayor, could not possibly have had time to serve as a model.The "rebel group" was satisfied with his answer, and the memorial tower remained unharmed. Since then, the Flood Control Memorial Tower has undergone several repairs. For example, in August 1995, the Harbin municipal government invested 200,000 yuan to repair the memorial tower, restore its original appearance, and add lighting decorations.In 1995, the Harbin Municipal People's Government designated the Flood Control Memorial Tower as a municipal cultural relics protection unit of Harbin.In 1997, Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin, then president of Russia, visited Harbin. Because more than ten thousand White Russians in Harbin had once participated in flood control work, Yeltsin specially visited the Flood Control Memorial Tower and bowed to it. In 1998, Harbin was again struck by a major flood, with water levels even higher than those of 1957. A total of 400,000 soldiers and civilians participated in flood control work and successfully responded to the flood.To commemorate this event, some Harbin residents proposed building a new monument, while others suggested engraving the names of flood control participants and the numbers of the participating military and police units on the memorial tower. In the end, the municipal government decided to add the 1998 flood water level to the memorial tower. In 2008, the Daoli District government and other departments jointly held a symposium to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the completion of the Harbin People's Flood Control Victory Memorial Tower.The following year, the Flood Control Memorial Tower received the New China Urban Sculpture Construction Achievement Award.In 2012, the Flood Control Memorial Tower was repaired again.
Structure and design
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