AsiaNet 201677

NANJING, China, July 24, 2026 /Xinhua-AsiaNet/--

On July 22, the 48th UNESCO World Heritage Committee session held a side event themed "Heritage Leading Urban and Rural Sustainable Development" in Busan, Republic of Korea. The Nanjing-initiated "Shared Heritage, Shared Future" thematic event was featured at the session, systematically presenting innovative practices for the holistic conservation of the old city centered on the Nanjing Ming City Wall through the "Preservation and Co-Creation" thematic case sharing and the "Our Wallscapes" digital image exhibition.

The side event was co-hosted by the World Heritage Institute of Training and Research for the Asia and the Pacific Region (WHITRAP) Shanghai Center under the auspices of UNESCO and the World Heritage Centre, with content co-produced by the Nanjing International Communication Center.

Wang Teng, Associate Researcher at the Nanjing City Wall Museum, highlighted two of Nanjing's landmark co-creation practice projects. The "Bring Every Brick Home - Guard the City Wall" project, launched in 2016, has appealed to the public for information on scattered city wall bricks and has recovered nearly 600,000 loose Ming Dynasty wall bricks to date. The "Never-Ending Heritage" digital innovation project focuses on the Porcelain Tower of the Great Bao'en Temple, reviving the lost historical heritage through digital restoration and participatory communication. Cho Do-won, a member of the ICOMOS Executive Committee, commended the conservation practices of the Nanjing City Wall as exemplary, providing an important reference for similar cultural heritage conservation efforts worldwide.

The "Our Wallscapes" digital image exhibition was simultaneously unveiled, featuring four films that capture the full scope of conservation efforts both within and beyond the wall. Among them, the Laomendong (East Zhonghua Gate Historical Culture Block) episode focuses on the living transmission of intangible cultural heritage - Laomendong has annually illuminated the New Year's festivities at the foot of the city wall with a zodiac lantern festival for twelve consecutive years. The Xiaoxihu episode presents a Nanjing model of "small-scale, incremental" urban regeneration.

This year marks the 660th anniversary of the founding of the Nanjing Ming City Wall. As China's only UNESCO City of Literature, Nanjing continues to carry out the "Shared Heritage, Shared Future" global youth co-creation initiative, consistently sharing Chinese stories of cultural heritage conservation with the world.

Source: Nanjing International Communication Center