33 Facts About Liang Sicheng

Liang Sicheng was a Chinese architect and architectural historian, known as the father of modern Chinese architecture.

Liang Sicheng's wife was the architect and poet Lin Huiyin.

Liang Sicheng was the Chinese representative of the Design Board which designed the United Nations headquarters in New York City.

Liang Sicheng is recognized as the "Father of Modern Chinese Architecture".

Liang Sicheng was born on 20 April 1901 in Tokyo, Japan, where his father, prolific scholar and reformist Liang Qichao, was in exile from China after the failed Hundred Days' Reform.

Liang Sicheng Qichao took refuge in Japan, where his eldest son was born.

Liang Sicheng briefly served in the government of the newly established Republic, which was taken over by a faction of warlords in Northern China.

Liang Sicheng Qichao quit his government post and initiated a social and literary movement to introduce modern, Western thought to Chinese society.

Liang Sicheng was educated by his father in this progressive environment.

In 1915, Liang Sicheng entered Tsinghua College, a preparatory school in Beijing.

Three years later, Liang Sicheng received his master's degree in architecture.

Liang Sicheng greatly benefited from his education in America, which prepared him for his future career as a scholar and professor in China.

In 1928, Liang Sicheng married Lin Huiyin, who had studied with him at the University of Pennsylvania and became an equally renowned scholar.

Liang Sicheng was recognized as an artist, architect and poet, admired by and friends with several famous scholars of her time, such as poet Xu Zhimo, philosopher Jin Yuelin and economist Chen Daisun.

In 1931, Liang Sicheng became a member of a newly developed organization in Beijing called the Society for Research in Chinese Architecture.

Liang Sicheng felt a strong impulse to study Chinese traditional architecture and that it was his responsibility to interpret and convey its building methods.

In spite of these difficulties, Liang Sicheng started his research by "decoding" classical manuals and consulting the workmen who have the traditional skills.

Liang Sicheng recognized that throughout China's history the timber-frame had been the fundamental form of construction.

Liang Sicheng realized that it was far from enough just to sit in his office day and night engaged in the books.

Liang Sicheng had to get out searching for the surviving buildings in order to verify his assumptions.

In 1947, Liang Sicheng received an honorary doctoral degree from Princeton University.

Liang Sicheng visited major architectural programs and influential architects in order to develop a model program at Tsinghua before returning to China.

Liang Sicheng considered the study of Qing Structural Regulation as a stepping stone to the much more daunting task of studying the Song dynasty Yingzao Fashi, due to the large number of specialist terms used in that manual differing substantially from the Qing dynasty architectural terminology.

Liang Sicheng's Annotated Yingzao Fashi was published posthumously by Tsinghua University Architecture Department's Yingzao Fashi Study Group in 1980.

When Liang Sicheng was later given the responsibility to develop a national style of architecture by the Chinese Communist Party, his intention was to pass on the essence of Chinese architecture.

Liang Sicheng sought to preserve the historical city of Beijing, but ultimately this view was rejected by leaders including Mao Zedong, who viewed Beijing as an important administrative area and socialist political symbol.

Liang Sicheng was targeted on ideological grounds for his theory of architecture which promoted traditional Chinese architecture; he was accused of "thinking that the Communist Party did not understand architecture", with traditional design being a "phenomenon of waste in construction".

In 1956, Liang Sicheng was forced to self-criticize; his "mistakes" were deemed to be academic rather than political.

Liang Sicheng's standing improved a few years later when his ideas on traditional design became acceptable and widely published again.

Liang Sicheng regained his position as Director of Architecture at Tsinghua University, conducted more surveys on ancient architectural structures, and completed the Annotated Yingzao Fashi.

Liang Sicheng married Lin Zhu, another Tsinghua faculty member, in 1962.

Liang Sicheng was persecuted again during the Cultural Revolution as "an authority of counter-revolutionary scholarship"; his university colleagues were sent to rural regions as part of the "Down to the Countryside Movement".

Liang Sicheng was rehabilitated posthumously after the end of the Cultural Revolution.