Makers › Engineer / Architect
Liang Sicheng
Architect and architectural historian who led the Society for Research in Chinese Architecture's field surveys and in 1937 identified the East Hall of Foguang Temple as a Tang timber building.
Mural of the event “Society for Chinese Architecture”, which this person took part in.
In the early twentieth century China's old building manuals were hard to read and hard to match with standing buildings. In February 1930 Zhu Qiqian founded the Society for Research in Chinese Architecture in Beiping; Liang Sicheng led its field measurement and Liu Dunzhen its textual research, and the Society both edited the old texts and measured buildings in the field. Between 1932 and 1937 its members surveyed many buildings across north China, Dule Temple among them, and in July 1937 Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin confirmed that the East Hall of Foguang Temple on Mount Wutai had been built in 857, under the Tang. In 1940 the Society moved to Lizhuang in Sichuan and carried on its work.
Also known as Liang Ssu-ch'eng (Wade-Giles)
Liang Sicheng, from a Xinhui (Guangdong) family, was born in Tokyo in 1901, the eldest son of Liang Qichao. He studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and in 1928 founded the architecture department of Northeastern University. Joining the Society for Research in Chinese Architecture in 1931 as head of its technical (fashi) department, he used the Song Yingzao fashi and the Qing building regulations as keys to read surviving buildings, and with his colleagues surveyed and measured sites across north China, among them Dule Temple at Jixian and the timber pagoda at Yingxian. In 1937, with Lin Huiyin and others, he established that the East Hall of Foguang Temple on Mount Wutai was built in 857 under the Tang. During the war he moved with the Society to Lizhuang in Sichuan, where he wrote a history of Chinese architecture and, in English, A Pictorial History of Chinese Architecture. He died in Beijing in 1972.
Life and times
- 1901 CEBorn
Qing
Republican Era
Modern Era - 1930Society for Chinese Architecture
Took partage 29Zhu Qiqian founded the Society for Research in Chinese Architecture in Beiping, where Liang Sicheng, Liu Dunzhen and their colleagues combined field surveys with textual study and made Chinese architectural history a modern discipline.- Zhu Qiqian Founds the Architecture SocietyIn 1930 Zhu Qiqian founded the Society for Research in Chinese Architecture in Beiping to study China's traditional buildings.
- Liang Sicheng Surveys Dule Temple1932age 31In April 1932 Liang Sicheng led the Society's survey of Dule Temple in Jixian and wrote it up as a study of the temple's Guanyin Pavilion and gate.
- Liang and Lin Date Foguang Temple1937age 36In 1937 Liang Sicheng, Lin Huiyin and their colleagues established that the East Hall of Foguang Temple on Mount Wutai was built in 857, under the Tang.
- Zhu Qiqian Founds the Architecture Society
- 1972 CEDied
Family tree
- Direct kin
