A Shijiazhuang film studio of split personalities

A building, one side of which looks like a traditional Chinese palace while the other resembles the United States' Capitol Hill, is under construction in December at the New Great Wall International Studio, a film production base and a tourist attraction in Shijiazhuang, Hebei province. [Photo by Zhang Yu/China Daily]

Eye-catching structure is fusion of traditional Chinese palace and US' Capitol Hill, as Zhang Yu and Wang Wei report in Shijiazhuang.

A quirky and uniquely designed building, one side of which looks like a traditional Chinese palace while the other resembles the United States' Capitol Hill, is catching a lot of attention and praise in Hebei province.

Located at the New Great Wall International Studio in Shijiazhuang, near the village of Donggoucun in the provincial capital of Shijiazhuang, the eye-catching structure is partly modeled after the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests (Qinian Dian) of the Temple of Heaven in Beijing.

Su Yaran, spokesperson for the studio base, said the structure has attracted many tourists in recent weeks.

Lyu Yafeng, a resident of Shijiazhuang, is one such curious passer-by.

"I couldn't wait to check it out in person," said Lyu, who read about it in a news report. "Just imagine you're looking at Qinian Dian, wouldn't you be surprised if you find that the other side of the building looks like the US Capitol?"

He said that after he posted a picture of the building on a social media app, he received a lot of comments from friends who were just as curious.

One of the comments came from Lyu's friend Lei Jing, who works in Switzerland but is from Shijiazhuang. Lei commented that the building must be "a patchwork of two photos edited with graphic tools" and that she couldn't believe it was a real building in her hometown.

"Don't doubt it, it's real and what you see is the face without makeup," Lyu replied on the app.

Next to the unique structure is a near-exact replica of Egypt's Great Sphinx of Giza. Su said the replica measures 87 meters long and 27 meters tall, similar to the measurements of the Great Sphinx.