Qianjiang New City is the modern face of Hangzhou: a planned business and civic district on the Qiantang River, laid out with broad avenues, towers, and big public buildings rather than the lanes and lakefront gardens most visitors associate with the city.
Come in the late afternoon or evening, when the riverfront and the light show around the civic centre give the district its best energy. It is not old Hangzhou, and that is the point: the area shows how aggressively the city has grown beyond West Lake into a provincial capital with a very contemporary skyline.