In the history of building, Liang Sicheng is one of the names that keeps returning.
The record lists Liang Sicheng as Chinese architect and scholar (1901-1972).
Liang Sicheng was born in 1901. His recorded nationality is People's Republic of China. He trained at Tsinghua University and University of Pennsylvania School of Design.
Modernism rejected ornament and historical style, arguing that a building should express its structure and its function - a claim contested ever since.
He is recorded as architect, art historian and architectural historian.
His best-known building is Monument to the People's Heroes. An architect is judged by how a building is used a century after the drawings.
That the work was built in People's Republic of China shaped it: climate, materials, planning law and who holds the budget all decide what can actually be built.
Liang Sicheng died in 1972, aged 71. The buildings remain, still in use by people who never knew the name - which is the particular afterlife architecture offers.
Achievements
- Notable work: Monument to the People's Heroes
- Trained at Tsinghua University and University of Pennsylvania School of Design
