The Moon Gate, an ancient Chinese architectural element that’s essentially a nearly circular arched portal through a garden wall, has potent spiritual pull: originating at the homes of wealthy landowners, these circular stone or brick openings fuse together the celestial with the earthly and represent prosperity, good fortune, renewal—a threshold as a blessing, if you could afford it.

In 2022, a different sort of pedestrian passageway, a bridge, was completed along the east bank of the Huangpu River in Shanghai’s Pudong district. While the bridge—more precisely, a 56,000-square-foot plaza with two irregularly shaped spans extending over a manmade waterway—evokes the moon gate in both name and form, its concerns are more egalitarian in nature. Designed by Boston-based architecture practice Höweler+Yoon (HYA), Moongate Bridge is a public gathering space and gateway to Shanghai Expo Park, coupling historical reference with contemporary reflection. Situated on the far northern edge of the park, at a narrow, bar-shaped artificial lake that itself is positioned over a subterranean parking garage, Moongate Bridge is directly opposite an elevated expressway that becomes the Lupu Bridge, a lengthy steel-arch landmark carrying six lanes of traffic over the Huangpu. More vitally, the sophisticated new bridge-plaza is adjacent to Shanghai Metro entrances, allowing for foot traffic to more slowly trickle in and out of the sprawling riverfront park.