architect and authority on the history of Chinese architecture

architect and authority on the history of Chinese architecture

Liang Sicheng (April 20, 1901 - January 9, 1972), born in Xinhui, Guangdong Province, was born in Tokyo, Japan. He devoted all his life to the research and protection of ancient Chinese architecture. He is an architectural historian, an architectural educator and an architect. He is known as the father of modern Chinese architecture.

Liang Sicheng was an academician of Academia Sinica (1948) and a member of the Department of philosophy and social sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He participated in the design of the monument to the people's heroes and the national emblem of the people's Republic of China.

Liang Sicheng's first wife was Lin Huiyin, who met in 1919, married in 1928, and had a daughter (Liang Zaibing) and a son (Liang Congjie); his second wife was Lin Zhu, who met in 1948 and remarried in 1962.

Life of the characters

Growing up and studying

Liang Sicheng's father, Liang Qichao, was a reformer in the late Qing Dynasty. He went abroad to escape the persecution of the Qing government, so Liang Sicheng was born in Tokyo, Japan. In 1912, after the revolution of 1911, Liang Sicheng returned home from Japan with his parents and studied in Chongde Xiaoji Huiwen Middle School (1912-1914) in Beijing. In 1915, he entered Peking Tsinghua University (the predecessor of Tsinghua University), and graduated from Tsinghua University in 1923. In 1924, he went to the Department of architecture of Pennsylvania University in Philadelphia with Lin Huiyin. In 1927, he got his bachelor's degree and master's degree. He also went to Harvard University to study architectural history and ancient Chinese architecture.

On March 21, 1928, Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin married at the Chinese Consulate General in Ottawa, Canada. Later, he went to Europe to visit ancient buildings. After returning to China on August 18, he taught in Shenyang Northeast University and founded the first Department of architecture in the history of modern education in China. In August 1929, Lin Huiyin returned to Beiping (now Beijing) from the northeast and gave birth to his daughter in Union Medical College Hospital, named Liang zaibeng, which means to commemorate his late father Liang Qichao's "ice room" study title.

In 1930, he and Zhang Rui participated in the planning of Tianjin and won the prize for the material construction plan of Tianjin special city.

during Counter-Japanese War

After Japan occupied Northeast China, Liang Sicheng returned to Beiping in 1931 and worked in China Construction Society (as director of French department).

In 1932, he presided over the restoration of Wenyuan Pavilion in the Forbidden City. In the same year, he wrote a manuscript of the Qing style construction rules.

Since 1937, he and Lin Huiyin have visited more than 200 counties in China's 15 provinces, mapping and photographing more than 2000 pieces of ancient architectural relics preserved in Tang, song, Liao, Jin, yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, including dule Temple Guanyin Pavilion in Jixian, Tianjin, Guangji temple in Baodi, Longxing Temple in Zhengding, Hebei, Yingxian Wooden Pagoda in Shanxi, and Liao temples in Datong Huayan Temple and Shanhua temple, Anji bridge built in Sui Dynasty in Zhaozhou, Hebei Province, etc. The results of these major investigations were published in foreign countries, which attracted international attention to these cultural relics and laid a good foundation for Liang Sicheng to annotate the French style of construction and compile the history of Chinese architecture in the future.

From 1944 to 1945, Liang Sicheng was appointed deputy director of the war zone cultural relics preservation Committee of the Ministry of education.

During the war of Liberation

In 1946, Liang Sicheng went to the United States to give lectures. He was employed as a professor of Yale University and a consultant architect of the United Nations building. For his outstanding contribution to the study of ancient Chinese architecture, he was awarded the honorary doctor of literature degree by Princeton University. In the same year, Liang Sicheng returned to his alma mater Tsinghua University and founded the Department of architecture.

In 1948, before the Pingjin campaign, Liang Sicheng drew the "national catalogue of cultural relics and ancient buildings" and handed it to the Chinese people's Liberation Army, so that the historical sites of Beiping were protected from shelling and the cultural relics and ancient city walls of Beijing were well protected.

The period of the people's Republic of China

After the founding of the people's Republic of China, Liang Sicheng was still a professor and head of the Department of architecture at Tsinghua University. He also served as deputy director of Beijing Urban Planning Commission, vice chairman of China Society of architecture, executive director of China Artists Association, member of the National Committee of China Federation of literary and art circles, member of all China Federation of Natural Science Societies, and member of China Association of science and technology , director of architectural theory and History Research Office of Architectural Science Research Institute, deputy director of Beijing Urban Construction Commission, etc.

In the early 1950's, Liang Sicheng and Chen Zhanxiang of the Urban Planning Commission put forward to the government the planning plan for the new Beijing City - "proposal on the location of the administrative center of the Central People's government". He advocated the protection of ancient buildings and city walls in Beijing, and proposed to build a new Beijing in the western suburbs, protect the old Beijing City, and not build high-rise buildings in the old city, but the proposal was not adopted. After that, he wrote many times and saved Tuancheng in Beihai.

In May 1953, Beijing began to demolish archways, and the large-scale demolition of ancient buildings began to spread. Liang Sicheng has been criticized many times for advocating the protection of the ancient city of Beijing in the traditional form. Wu Han, then vice mayor of Beijing, was responsible for explaining the demolition work. In order to save the only intact pailou street in the ancient capital of the four dynasties from being destroyed by political factors, Liang Sicheng and Wu Han had a fierce argument. Later, Lin Huiyin had a face-to-face conflict with Wu Han at a dinner party hosted by the Ministry of culture.

In 1962, seven years after Lin Huiyin died of illness, Liang Sicheng married Lin Zhu (Cheng Yingquan's ex-wife), 27 years younger than himself.

During the cultural revolution, Liang Sicheng was criticized as a typical "retro" and copied his home, and all his books and materials were confiscated.

Liang Sicheng died in Beijing on January 9, 1972.

Main achievements

architecture

Academic works

Character honor

In 1963, Liang Sicheng designed the "Jianzhen monk Memorial Hall" in Yangzhou. The building was built in 1973 and won the first prize of Chinese excellent architectural design in 1984.

In August 1988, the State Science and Technology Commission of the people's Republic of China issued a certificate to recognize the important contributions made by Professor Liang Sicheng and his group in the research of "Chinese ancient architectural theory and protection of cultural relic buildings", and was awarded the first prize of National Natural Science Award by the state science and Technology Commission.

Social evaluation

American scholar Fei Zhengqing made the following comments on Liang Sicheng's work during the Anti Japanese War: "in World War II, we met again in the west of China, but they have become semi disabled patients, but they are still desperate to devote themselves to academic research under extremely difficult conditions. At that time, Lin Hui suffered from tuberculosis, while Liang Sicheng suffered from spinal injury due to the sequelae of a car accident in his youth. However, their enthusiasm for their pioneering research work is not affected by their illness or hard life. It was during the wartime that Liang Sicheng wrote the history of Chinese architecture in English. In our mind, they are the lofty models of fearing no difficulties and devoting themselves to science.

Liang Sicheng's academic achievements are also valued by foreign academic circles. Joseph Needham, a British scholar specializing in the history of Chinese science, said that Liang Sicheng is a "master of Chinese architectural history".

Commemoration of later generations

In 1999, the former Ministry of construction established the "Liang Sicheng Architecture Award", named after Mr. Liang Sicheng, a famous architect and educator in modern times. It is the highest honorary award awarded to Chinese architects in recognition of outstanding architects who have made great contributions and achievements in architectural design and creation.

Artistic image

Chinese PinYin : Liang Si Cheng