Episode 119: Lin Huiyin, Part 2
In 1928, Huiyin and Sicheng were asked to come to Northeastern University in Shenyang, Manchuria. Here they helped start the architectural school at the university. It was the second architecture school in China and the first to use Western curriculum. In 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria, and Huiyin and Sicheng had to abandon their program and go back to Peking. They had two children: a daughter Liang Zaibing and a son Liang Congjie. During these years, Huiyin was diagnosed with tuberculosis. During the 1930s, Huiyin and Sicheng start exploring historic traditional Chinese architecture and begin taking trips further into China to discover and document these structures. They spent a lot of time in the Shanxi Province which hadn’t been touched by modernization and had been spared from the wars of the last 1000 years due to it being cut off by mountains, rivers, and deserts. Some of their major discoveries were the Guangsheng Temple, the Foguang Temple, and the city of Pingyao. The Foguang Temple is the fourth oldest timber structure in China. They also documented buildings in Peking such as the Temple of Heaven. In 1937, Japan moves to a full invasion of China, and Huiyin and Sicheng flee with their children to the south of China moving to a few different cities: Kunming, Tianjin, and Lizhuang. After WWII, they returned to Peking. In 1946 they helped establish the architecture department at Tsinghua University in Peking and Huiyin became a professor there. In 1949, Mao Zedong came to power. At first Huiyin and Sicheng thought this would be a good thing, but then realized that Mao wanted to remove all of China’s ‘feudal’ heritage, which included the historic buildings that Huiyin and Sicheng were working so hard to document and preserve. They felt China could modernize and still pay tribute and preserve its history. They were involved with the design of the national flag and national emblem. They also designed the Monument to the People’s Heroes in Tiananmen Square. They proposed a plan for the city of Beijing which worked to preserve historic architecture and construct new buildings outside of the old city. Mao rejected the proposal and ordered all 25 miles of the historic city walls to be torn down. In 1955, at the age of 51, Huiyin passed away from her tuberculosis. Sicheng continued to work and teach and got remarried in 1962 to Lin Zhu. In 1966 when the Cultural Revolution started, Sicheng was ‘re-educated’ and sent to rural areas to be imprisoned. He died in 1972. Sicheng’s second wife Zhu and a close friend of Huiyin and Sicheng, Wilma Fairbank worked hard to preserve all of the work that Huiyin and Sicheng did. Their legacy remains because of these two women.
Caryatid: Lu Wenyu
Lu Wenyu is a Chinese architect and professor. She and her husband Wang Shu met while studying architecture at the Nanjing Institute of Technology and founded Amateur Architecture Studio in 1997. The firm focuses on natural materials in their work like wood, stone, and mud. Wenyu also teaches at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. She has said that they named their office Amateur Architecture because they were trying to fight against the ‘professional, soulless architecture’ that was being done in China. One article said ‘her techniques are rooted in Chinese tradition but she insists that historical knowledge should be a springboard for her students, and herself, to explore new and inventive ideas.’ The studio won the Pritzker Prize in 2012 for their projects.
References
Choo, Jennifer, and Celeste Goh. “8 inspiring Asian female architects to know.” Tatler Asia, 21 Mar. 2024, www.tatlerasia.com/homes/architecture-design/famous-groundbreaking-asian-female-architects.
Chow, Tony Perrottet, and Stefan Chow. “The Couple Who Saved China’s Ancient Architectural Treasures Before They Were Lost Forever.” Smithsonian Magazine, Jan. 2017, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/lovers-shanxi-saved-chinas-ancient-architectural-treasures-before-lost-forever-180961424.
Photographs by Stefan Chow
Elegant, Naomi. “The Story of Liang and Lin.” The Pennsylvania Gazette, 23 Oct. 2019, thepenngazette.com/21167-2.
Fairbank, Wilma. Liang and Lin: Partners in Exploring China’s Architectural Past. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009.
“Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin.” YouTube, uploaded by China Documentary.
“Lin Huiyin.” Architectuul., architectuul.com/architect/lin-huiyin.
Roche, Daniel Jonas. “Lin Huiyin, visionary Chinese architect, preservationist, and activist, will be awarded a posthumous architecture diploma from UPenn.” The Architect’s Newspaper, 16 Oct. 2023, www.archpaper.com/2023/10/lin-huiyin-visionary-chinese-architect-preservationist-activist-awarded-posthumous-architecture-diploma-upenn.
Wikipedia contributors. “Lin Huiyin.” Wikipedia, 10 Nov. 2024, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lin_Huiyin.
---. “Lu Wenyu.” Wikipedia, 25 Oct. 2024, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lu_Wenyu.
Williams, Austin. “Lu Wenyu: The Emphasis on Craft and Precision - the Architectural Review.” The Architectural Review, 10 Aug. 2018, www.architectural-review.com/essays/lu-wenyu-the-emphasis-on-craft-and-precision.
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