Which building’s middle column doesn’t work?

Visit the City Hall of Wenze City

More than 300 years ago, the British architectural designer Chris Leyen undertook the task of designing the City Hall of Wenze City. The young designer made full use of his rich knowledge of engineering mechanics and many years of practical experience to cleverly design a plan that uses only one column to support the ceiling of the hall. After more than a year of construction, the city hall was handed over for acceptance. However, authorities believed that supporting the ceiling with only one pillar could not ensure the safety of the hall, and ordered Leian to add a few more pillars.

Leian firmly believed in his design, claiming that "a strong pillar is enough to ensure the safety of the hall", and cited relevant examples to support his argument. Unexpectedly, his stubbornness and argumentation angered city officials, and he was almost taken to court.

Faced with various pressures, Leian was caught in a dilemma: insisting on his own ideas would mean openly opposing government officials; giving up would go against the scientific principles he adhered to. Later, he finally figured out a way to deal with these ignorant "authoritative people". He asked the construction workers to add four pillars to the hall in a serious manner. However, these four pillars did not touch the ceiling, leaving gaps that people standing on the ground could not detect at all.

Time flies, and more than 300 years have passed. Over the past 300 years, city officials have changed one after another, but no one has discovered this secret. There has been no danger to the ceiling of the hall, and the pillars supporting the ceiling are still the same ones. It was not until the late 1990s that when the city government was repairing the ceiling of the hall, it was discovered that there was a small gap between the pillars and the ceiling, and there was a line of small words engraved on the top of the central pillar: "Confidence and truth only require one pillar."

After this "secret" of Leian was disclosed by the media, it immediately aroused strong interest from architectural experts from all over the world. People went to visit and inspect these four strange pillars in batches, and put this building into its original shape. The city hall called it a "building that mocks ignorance" and joked that Leian was a master of "falsehood". Many tourists come here to take photos in front of these four pillars. The local government made no secret of this. After the repairs, it deliberately opened the hall as a tourist attraction and specially recruited several young and beautiful girls as docents to introduce the architectural history of the hall to tourists and discover the "secrets" within it. "The process aims to guide people to adhere to the truth and advocate science.