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Liu Dunzhen
Architectural historian who headed the documentary department of the Society for Research in Chinese Architecture, led surveys in north and southwest China and later wrote Classical Gardens of Suzhou.
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 Zi Shineng
Liu Dunzhen, courtesy name Shineng, was born in 1897 at Xinning in Hunan. He went to Japan in 1913 and at the Tokyo Higher Technical School turned from mechanical engineering to architecture. Back in China he taught at the Suzhou industrial school and Central University. He joined the Society for Research in Chinese Architecture in 1931 and from 1933 was a full-time researcher and head of its documentary department, sharing the work with Liang Sicheng's technical department; he led surveys of early buildings in Hebei, Henan and Shanxi and, during the war, in Yunnan and Sichuan, and published many survey reports. In 1943 he returned to teach at Central University and later spent many years at the Nanjing Institute of Technology, where he wrote Classical Gardens of Suzhou and edited a history of ancient Chinese architecture. He died in Nanjing in 1968.
Life and times
- 1897 CEBorn
Qing
Republican Era
Modern Era - 1930Society for Chinese Architecture
Took partage 33Zhu 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.
- Zhu Qiqian Founds the Architecture Society
- 1968 CEDied
