Savor Crawfish At This Restaurant Overlooking The Dabaoen Temple

2024 Best of Year Winner for Shining Moment

Designer and Dayi Design firm founder Yi Zhou believes that often the best way to protect a historic monument is to integrate it into modern life, making it relevant and accessible to people today. Such was her strategy when she turned four ancient buildings totaling 27,000 square feet on the banks of the Qinhuai River into Big Red Crawfish, a seafood restaurant and commercial space in Nanjing, China. Inside, original doors and Taihu limestone meet an LED display that introduces movement and color. Intense color appears outside, where Dayi Design constructed a serpentine steel staircase painted a vibrant crawfish red. It flows over and around—but never touches—the one- and two-story structures, which, amazingly, date to 300 AD. Creating a striking contrast, the dragonlike connector serves multiple purposes: It is a fire escape that connects the upper floors, provides shelter for the ground level, unifies the 1⁄2-acre site, and offers views of the nearby Dabaoen Temple. For visitors, it’s also a popular location for photos—and now a landmark of its own.

yi zhou; haoyi chang; shizhe yang.