Light and legacy meet at Yongding Tower projection mapping

Standing atop Eagle Mountain in Garden Expo Park, Yongding Tower is recognized as the skyline landmark of southwest Beijing. This magnificent nine-story octagonal tower, inspired by the architectural style of the Liao and Jin dynasties, symbolizes harmony and prosperity with its unique “4-8-9” design, symbolizing lasting peace and stability in all directions and embodying the beautiful wish for “Eternal Stability and Peace”. During the National Day holiday, the “Beijing Night Dreamscape” light festival took center stage, as Barco projectors illuminated Yongding Tower in a stunning projection show that perfectly blended ancient architecture with modern technology.

Context

As one of Beijing’s most iconic heritage landmarks, Yongding Tower dazzled visitors with its vibrant projection spectacle which showcased the tower’s unique charm and highlighted cultural confidence and the allure of Beijing. This project also marked the China debut of Barco’s QDX series projectors, demonstrating the superior performance of Barco’s next-generation 3DLP engineering projectors and their ability to deliver stunning visuals in complex architectural environments.

Challenge

The project faced two major challenges. First, the video content required precise fine-tuning to accommodate Yongding Tower’s orientation, angles, staggered levels, depth, and edge contours, ensuring the projection mapping patterns were accurate and distortion-free, and that the architectural lines remained crisp and sharply defined, creating a vivid three-dimensional effect. Second, the tower’s predominantly red exterior caused significant color shifts when projecting images; for example, white text could appear red, resulting in a major deviation from the source content. Achieving accurate color reproduction required multiple rounds of meticulous adjustment.

Solution

The project deployed twelve QDX-4K45 projectors using a “3×4 stacking” configuration: four QDX-4K45 units formed a single group, projecting images stacked together to achieve dazzling brightness and vivid colors. Three such groups were seamlessly blended on the tower’s surface to create a massive 36 m × 55 m projection, delivering stunning color sharpness and saturation that made the visuals truly captivating.The result was a breathtaking spectacle of radiant light and crisp detail, transforming Yongding Tower into a glowing icon of the night.

The projection show depicted a breathtaking landscape of distant mountains and nearby trees, with blossoms covering the entire tower. The moon over Lugou Bridge rose gently, and cranes glided gracefully between verdant hills and rivers. Like a scroll unfurling, iconic landmarks - including the Big Air Shougang, Lugou Bridge, and Beijing’s central axis - appeared in sequence, creating a cinematic and immersive visual journey.

Results

The success of the Yongding Tower projection show added a brilliant new highlight to Beijing’s night tourism while proving the powerful performance and reliability of Barco’s QDX series. With cutting-edge projection technology and engineering expertise, Barco continues to push the boundaries of visual storytelling, empowering projects across cultural tourism, exhibitions, live events, and immersive experiences.