Wu Ding'an -- the chief engineer with Actuant China, which designed how the move would be done -- said moving the building posed a lot of challenges.

All members of staff taking part in the project took a meticulous approach to the move, he said.

Wu added: "Before the moving ever started, Liansheng -- the company implementing the project -- had taken a whole week to test the equipment and conduct several simulation experiments."

In the very beginning, the team implemented the moving plan extremely slowly in order to avoid making mistakes because there were no previous examples of the practice in China that they could use for reference.

On the first day, the building was moved less than 40 centimentres. During the first five days, the hall was moved only some 3.5 metres.

Miao Luming, the concert hall's general manager, said: "Though the slow speed might delay the opening date of the concert hall to the public and result in our missing some business opportunities, our biggest concern is that the hall, with its rich history, should always remain in a perfect state at all times."

The concert hall management therefore never rushed the moving team.

The team members were later able to move the building more quickly as they gained experience.

Their fastest moving speed was 2 metres per hour. The longest distance they moved the building in any one day was 16.5 metres.

The margin of error in the moving operation was only 5 millimetres, according to the team.

(China Daily June 18, 2003)