Liang Sicheng

Liang Sicheng (zh-cpw|c=梁思成|p=Liáng Sīchéng|w=Liang Ssu-ch'eng; 20 April 1901 [Liang reported his birth year as 1902 at University of Pennsylvania and to the United Nations Design Board] – 9 January 1972) was the son of Liang Qichao, a well-known Chinese thinker in the late Qing Dynasty. Liang Sicheng returned to China from the United States after studying at the University of Pennsylvania. His first wife was Lin Huiyin and his niece is Maya Lin.

Liang is the author of China's first history on Chinese architecture and founder of the Architecture Department of Northeast University in 1928 and Tsinghua University in 1946. He was the Chinese representative in the Design Board which designed the United Nations headquarters in New York. He, along with Lin Huiyin (1904–1955), Mo Zongjiang (1916–1999), and Ji Yutang (1902–c. 1960s), discovered and analyzed the first and second oldest timber structures still standing in China, located at Nanchan Temple and Foguang Temple at Mount Wutai.

He is recognized as the “Father of Chinese Architecture”. To cite Princeton University, which awarded him an honorary doctoral degree in 1947, he was “a creative architect who has also been a teacher of architectural history, a pioneer in historical research and exploration in Chinese architecture and planning, and a leader in the restoration and preservation of the priceless monuments of his country.”

Early life

Liang was born in 1901. For China, the early 20th century was when traditionalism crossed and coexisted with modernity. With the waning of the Qing Dynasty , China’s last feudal regime, and early Republic era - in a time that Chinese people were suffering from not only the agonies of foreign invasion and occupation started in 1840, but also from the vicious domestic politics during that time.

Under such circumstance, the young Emperor of China, Guangxu Emperor, was attempting to save his empire through drastic reforms. Liang Qichao, a well-educated and energetic young man, was a leader of this famous movement in 1898, which is often referred to as Chinese Meiji Revolution. But the movement failed. The emperor’s mother killed her son to regain her power, and Liang Qichao had to take refuge in Japan, where his first and favorite son Liang Sicheng was born on April 20, 1901 (see footnote 1). After 1911, Liang Qichao returned to China from his exile in Japan. He briefly served in the newly established Republic government called the Beiyang (Northern Ocean) representing a faction of warlords located in Northern China. Liang Qichao later quited his government positions and started a social and literary movement to introduce western and modern social thoughts. Liang Sicheng was educated under the progressive environment by his father.

Liang's wife, Lin Huiyin (known in the United States as Phyllis Lin), was an equal legend in China’s history. She was recognized as an artist, architect and poet. Enchanted by her beauty and talent, several famous scholars never married or yearned for her even after their own marriages. Among them there were famous poet Xu Zhimo, philosopher Jin Yuelin and economist Chen Daisun. It was she who led Liang into the field of architecture. She was always the strongest supporter of her husband’s career.

In 1915 Liang entered Tsinghua College, a preparatory school in Beijing. This college later became Tsinghua University, now among the best universities in China. In 1924, the couple went to University of Pennsylvania on a Boxer Rebellion Indemnity Scholarship to study architecture under Paul Cret. Three years later, Liang got his master degree in architecture. He greatly benefited from his education in America. It also helped him practice his own professorship back in China.

Career

When the couple went back in 1928, they were invited by the Northeastern University in Shenyang. At that time Shenyang was under the control of Japanese troops, which was a big challenge to perform any professional practice. Anyway, they went, established the second School of Architecture in China but also the first curriculum which took a western one (to be precise the curriculum from University of Pennsylvania) as its prototype. It was a pity that their effort was interrupted by Japan’s occupation in the following year, but after 18 years, in 1946, the Liangs were again able to practice their professorship in Tsinghua University in Beijing. This time a more systematic and all-around curriculum was discreetly put forward, consisted of courses of fine arts, theory, history, science, and professional practice. This has become a reference for any other school of architecture later developed in China. This improvement also reflected the change of architectural style from the Beaux-Arts tradition tot the modernist Bauhaus style since the 1920s.

In 1929, Liang and his colleague, Zhang Rui, at Northeast University won an award of the physical plan of Tianjin. This plan incorporates the contemporary American techniques in zoning, public administration, government finance and municipal engineering. Liang's involvement in city planning was further inspired by Clarence Stein, the chairman of the Regional Planning Association of America. They met in Bejping in 1936 during Stein's trip to Asia. Liang and Stein became good friends and in Liang's visit to the US in 1946/7, Liang stayed in Stein's apartment when he came to New York City. Stein played an instrumental role in the establishment of the architectural and planning program at Tsinghua University.

In 1931 Liang became a member of a newly-developed organization in Beijing called the Institute for Research in Chinese Architecture. He felt a strong impulse to study Chinese traditional architecture and that it was his responsibility to interpret and convey its building methods. It was not an easy task. Since the carpenters were generally illiterate, methods of construction were usually conveyed orally from master to apprentice, and were regarded as secrets within every craft. In spite of these difficulties, Liang started his research by "decoding" classical manuals and consulting the workmen who have the traditional skills.

From the start of his new career as a historian, Liang was determined to search and discover what he termed the “grammar” of Chinese architecture. He recognized that throughout China’s history the timber-frame had been the fundamental form of construction. He also realized that it was far from enough just to sit in his office day and night engaged in the books. He had to get out searching for the surviving buildings in order to verify his assumptions. His first travel was in April 1932. In the following years he and his colleagues successively discovered some survived traditional buildings, including: the Temple of Buddha's Light (857), the Temple of Solitary Joy (984), the Yingzhou Pagoda (1056), Zhaozhou Bridge (589-617), and many others. Because of their effort, these buildings managed to survive.

After the war, Liang was appointed to establish the architectural and planning programs at Tsinghua University. In 1946, he stayed at Princeton University as a visiting fellow and served as the Chinese representative in the design of the United Nation Headquarters Building. In 1947, Liang received an honorary doctoral degree from Princeton University. He visited major architectural programs and influential architects in order to develop a model programs at Tsinghua before returning China.

Works

To spread and share his understandings and appreciation of Chinese architecture, and most importantly, to help save its diminishing building technologies, Liang published his first book, "Qing Structural Regulations" in 1934. The book was on the study of the methods and rules of Qing architecture with the 1734 Qing Architecture Regulation and several other ancient manuals as the textbook, the carpenters as teachers, and the Forbidden City in Beijing as teaching material. Since its publication, for more than seven decades, this book has become a standard textbook for anyone who wants to understand the essence of ancient Chinese architecture. Liang considered the study of "Qing Structural Regulation" as a stepping stone to the much more daunting task of studying Song dynasty Yingzao Fashi("Treatise on Architectural Methods" ), due to the large number of special terms used in that manual differ substantially from the Qing dynasty architectural terminolgy.

Liang's monumental study of Yingzao Fashi spanned more than two decades, from 1940 to 1963, and the first draft of "Annotated Yingzao Fashi" was completed in 1963. [Preface to Annotated Yingzao Fashi, Liang Sicheng, Aug, 1963, Collected Works of Liang Sicheng, Vol 7 Yingzao Fashi, p16 ISBN 7-112-04431-6] . However due to the eruptionof Cultural Revolution in China, the publication of this work was cut short. Liang's "Annotated Yingzao Fashi" was published posthumously by Qing Hua University Architecture Department Yingzao Fashi Study Group in 1980(it now occupies the whole vol 7 of the ten volume Collected Works).

Liang considered the Yingzao Fashi and Qing Structural Regulations as "two grammar booksof Chinese architecture", he wrote:"Both government manuals, they are of the greatest importance for the study of the technological aspects of Chinese architecture." [Liang Ssu Cheng: Chinese Architecture, A Pictorial History, p14 ISBN0-486-43999-2]

Another book, "History of Chinese Architecture" [Liang Sicheng. "Zhong guo jian zhu shi". Baihua Literature and Art Publishing House. 2005 ] , was "the first thing of its kind". In his words, this book was "an attempt to organize the materials collected by myself and other members of the Institute during the past twelve years." He had divided the previous 3,500 years into six architectural periods, defined each period by references to historical and literary citations, described existing monuments of each period, and finally analyzed the architecture of each period as evidenced from a combination of painstaking library and field research. All of these books have become a solid basis for the following scholars to explore evolution and principles of Chinese architecture and still have their eminent meanings today.

Liang's posthumous manuscript "Chinese Architecture, A Pictorial History", written in English , edited by Wilma Fairbank was published by MIT Press in 1984 and won ForeWord Magazine's Architecture "Book of the Year" Award" [Liang Ssu-Cheng CHINESE ARCHITECTURE, A PICTORIAL HISTORY] .

Restoration works
Liang's first experience of participating in restoring an old building was in 1932, when he was asked to restore a two-story imperial library, the Wenyuan Pavilion, erected in 1776 in the southwestern part of the Forbidden City. In 1935 he was selected the advisor of the restoration project of the Temple of Confucius. In his proposal he expressed his attitude toward historic buildings. He said: in face of all the old buildings dating from different periods of time, it is our responsibility to protect and restore them. Before starting our work, we need to carefully look into its background, to fix it in a rational way in order to extend its existence as long as possible. Liang's attitude toward traditions is typical of the Chinese spirit of being conservative.

Design works
The same reverence toward history was reflected by most of Liang's design works. One example was in around 1950, when the couple was appointed to the groups designing the new national emblem. They urged that the emblem should have Chinese characteristics, not a hammer and sickle. They succeeded and in the end a representation of the façade of the Tiananmen in red and gold became the emblem that is still used today.

In 1951 they were commissioned to design the Monument to the People's Heroes, which was to be erected in the center of the Tiananmen Square. Liang's advice that it should resemble the stone memorial stele universally found throughout China swayed the design group. It is noticeable that although Liang received a totally western education in his youth, he and his works were still dominated by a conservative and tradition-oriented spirit, which was probably influenced by his father, and which was also authentic and sincere for a real Chinese scholar.

The National Style
When Liang was later given the responsibility to develop a national style of architecture by the Communist Party of China, his intention was to pass on the essence of Chinese architecture. This specific "essence", was considered to be the "large roof", the temple-style concave curved roofs and overhanging eaves to denote their Chinese origin. Though he was severely criticized for this, a wave of the National Style had already spread out and even had its influence after one or two decades. The famous examples include: China Fine Arts Gallery (1959), National Library of China (1987), Beijing west railway station (1996), which are all typical of their large roofs.

Biggest frustration—the urban planning of Beijing
With such a deep respect to the old, Liang came up with his biggest ambition of preserving the old Beijing as a whole. Under the Communist government, he was named Vice-Director of the Beijing City Planning Commission. In his early recommendations for transforming Beijing into the new national capital, he insisted that the city should be a political and cultural center, not industrial. He later put forward a proposal that a new administrative center for government buildings with a north-south axis be established west of the Forbidden City, far away from the Inner City. He also advocated that the city walls and gates be preserved; he even published an article entitled "Beijing—a Masterpiece of Urban Planning", hoping to win the support of the general public. Very regretfully, these dreams of Liang never came true. His biggest ambition only ended up with the biggest frustration. The walls were torn down without exception. However, Liang's suggestion to preserve architectures in Kyoto and Nara was adopt by Alliance in World War II.

Beloved Educator
Liang was also respected by his colleagues and students as a humorous, dedicated and responsible teacher. He founded two design programs and searched to integrated modernism and best practice into design education. He considered that architecture should be placed in the context of a bigger physical environment and students should learn an array of subjects in an integrated manner.

Repression and criticism under Communist rule

Despite Liang's contribution to designing national emblem of the People's Republic of China and helping with the reconstruction of Beijing, his theory of architecture, which emphasized the greatness of Chinese building tradition, was severely criticized by the Communist Party. In 1956 Liang was forced to self-criticize and admit that he had made mistakes. (Chou p.283)

During the Cultural Revolution, Liang Sicheng was condemned as "an authority of counter-revolutionary scholarship" and suffered severe persecution. He died in Beijing in 1972, three years before the Cultural Revolution ended. [*Chou, Chih-p'ing. "Literature and Society." Princeton University Press, 1999. p.284 ISBN 0691010447] . He was subsequently redressed.

Footnotes

References

*Chou, Chih-p'ing. "Literature and Society." Princeton University Press, 1999. ISBN 0691010447
*Hu, Xiao (胡晓) 2006. “Preserving the Old Beijing: The First Conflict between Chinese Architects and the Communist Government in the 1950s” Paper presented at the 1st Annual James A. Rawley Graduate Conference in the Humanities, Lincoln, Nebraska. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=historyrawleyconference
*Li, Shiqiao (李士桥) 2002. “Writing a modern Chinese architectural history: Liang Sicheng and Liang Qichao,” "Journal of Architectural Education" 56(1): 35-45.
*Steinhardt, Nancy Shatzman. 2002. “China: Designing the future, venerating the past,” "The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians" 61(4): 537-48.
*Ruan, Xing (阮昕) 2002 “Accidental affinities: American Beaux-Arts in Twentieth-Century Chinese architectural education and practice,” "The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians", 61(1) (March): 30-47.
*Fairbank, Wilma. "Liang and Lin: Partners in Exploring China's Architectural Past". University of Pennsylvania Press. 1994. ISBN 081223278X
*Xue, Charlie Q. L. "Building a Revolution, Chinese Architecture Since 1980". Hong Kong University Press. 2006.
*Sennott, R. Stephen "Encyclopedia of 20th Century Architecture". page 767-6. 2004. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers. ISBN-13: 978-1579584337.
*Wong, Sidney (黄振翔). "Lin Huiyin (林徽因) and Liang Sicheng (梁思成) as Architectural Students at the University of Pennsylvania (1924-27)" "Planning and Development" Volume 23, No. 1, page 75-93, 2008.