Liang Sicheng led an extraordinary life. He was the son of Liang Qi-chao (梁啓超), one of China’s most famous intellectuals, and grew up in Japan. Educated at the University of Pennsylvania, Liang also studied at Harvard and was greatly influenced by American architects and architecture. One of the few Chinese of his time with a detailed understanding of modern architecture, he returned to China in 1928 and spent more than 12 years researching the architecture of ancient China, continuing his work even through the chaotic years of the Anti-Japanese War. He published his findings in journals in Chinese and English, revealing to the world for the first time the history, skills and beauty of Chinese architecture. After World War Two, he taught at Yale University and served as China’s representative for the design of the United Nations’ new headquarters in New York. After 1949, he remained in Beijing as head of the architectural department of Tsinghua University (清華大學). He designed major buildings in the new state but failed to persuade Chairman Mao Zedong to preserve the ancient city of Beijing, to Liang’s great sorrow. In the 1950s and during the Cultural Revolution, he was severely criticized; he died in Beijing in January 1972. After the Cultural Revolution, he was fully rehabilitated; his works were published, including 梁思成全集 and 中國建築歷史, and Tsinghua University celebrated his achievements. In 1984, his “Pictorial History of Chinese Architecture” was published in English by Wilma Fairbank; she and her husband Sinologist John Fairbank were close friends of Liang and his wife Lin Huiyin (林徽因), herself a remarkable personality.

How to purchase the book: "Liang Sicheng: Guardian of China's Architectural History," published by Joint publishing, can be ordered at www.mybookone.com.hk

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MORE ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Mark O’Neill has lived in Asia since 1978 and is author of 17 books. These include biographies of Zhou Youguang, known as the “father of China’s pinyin system”; Sir Robert Hart, Director-General of China’s imperial maritime customs from 1863-1911; and his own grandfather, an Irish Presbyterian missionary in Manchuria from 1897-1942. Born in London, O’Neill was educated at Marlborough College and New College, Oxford and worked in Washington D.C., Manchester and Belfast before moving to Asia.

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