Header: TPK Finn
The Mianyang Fujiang Bridge is a 603-metre steel arch bridge that crosses the Fujiang River on the northern side of the city of Mianyang, with two arches that lean in towards each other and change colour at night. Its lighting was designed by China Railway Major Bridge Reconnaissance & Design Institute Group, the same institute behind the bridge itself, with TPK Lighting having supplied and installed its 4,011 lights in May of 2025.
The qin and the bow
The bridge was designed around the idea of “Fuqin Puyun”, which means “playing the qin, composing a melody” in Chinese. The qin, also known as the guqin, is a traditional Chinese instrument with strings that, according to the designers, has a long history in Mianyang. Seen from afar, the two arches remind onlookers of the body of the instrument stretched over the river, while, from the side, the bridge looks like a bow pulled back and ready to shoot.
Each arch is a hollow steel box tilted inwards at 70 degrees, so the pair lean towards each other like the handle of a basket, rising 52 metres above the road at their highest point. The road hangs on 15 pairs of steel cables, known as hangers, and the main span covers 255 metres of the river.
The body of the qin
As we’ve seen, the lighting designers treated the arches as the body of the qin and the hangers as its strings. To light the body, TPK added 1,292 wall washers (long, narrow lights that spread a cohesive wash of colour over a surface) along the sides and the top of both arches.
The hangers are lit from below by narrow-beam floodlights that shine upwards along each cable, with rings of coloured light forming on the inner side of the arches. These floodlights, 82 in total, were placed on every pier as well and along the open sections at the edges of the road.
All of these lights can produce any colour as well as pure white, having been fitted with red, green, blue and white LEDs, and they are controlled remotely. The bridge can, therefore, play different scenes and light shows and change together with the buildings around it, the overall style being, in the words of the designers, “grand and restrained”.
Lights in the guardrails
For the road itself, the designers decided against street lamps, as rows of poles would spoil the look of the bridge, disturb nearby residents with their glare and wear out quickly from the vibration of the traffic. The lighting was, then, built directly into the guardrails, with TPK having supplied 2,637 lights in a constant white that lights the road and forms a continuous line along the bridge. These lights were developed especially for the Fujiang Bridge, in three versions that fit its two sizes of guardrail pipe.
Fixing the lights
As the arches and the piers hold up the weight of the bridge, no holes could be drilled into them. The team, therefore, welded small metal frames onto the structure and mounted every light on them, with a stainless steel cable having been added as a backup.
The lights are controlled from the city’s road management platform, located about one kilometre from the bridge, where instructions tell each light when to switch on and which colour or scene to show.
As a final touch, the bridge itself was assembled on the riverbank, since no work is allowed in the Fujiang during its flood season, from May to October, and its 14,000 tonnes of steel were then pushed 290 metres across the water.
Project information
Lighting Design: China Railway Major Bridge Reconnaissance & Design Institute Group Co., Ltd.
Lighting Supply and Installation: TPK Lighting
Design and Construction: China Railway 18th Bureau Group Co., Ltd., China Railway Major Bridge Reconnaissance & Design Institute Group Co., Ltd.
Client: Mianyang Jiaofa Hengtong Construction Engineering Co., Ltd.
Photography: TPK Finn
Location: Mianyang, China
Date: 2025
