A 969-Year-Old Pagoda, Too Fragile to Climb, Gets a Fitting Facelift

When, at dusk on a fall day in 1933, Liang Sicheng, China’s pre-eminent architectural historian, first laid eyes on the Wooden Pagoda of Ying County, he was in awe.“When we were still some five miles from the town, I suddenly discerned — near the furthest limit the road allowed the eye to reach — what seemed a flashing jewel against a deep violet backdrop: a red-and-white pagoda, its tiered roofs