Liang Sicheng (network diagram)
On April 4th, 1938, Peking University, Tsinghua University and Nankai University from Beijing and Tianjin formed the National Southwest Associated University in Yunnan. At this time, the government funding is only 40% of the original total funds of the three schools, and it is often not in place on time. It is often necessary to send people to Chongqing for dunning. Two principals, Jiang Menglin and Zhang Boling, live in Chongqing to mediate, but it still doesn't help. At this moment, The National SouthWest Associated University needs money more than ever: there are no school buildings, and all of them have to be rebuilt from wasteland; Renting houses in schools and auditoriums also requires class fees; Books, materials and experimental instruments were destroyed in the war. To restore the normal teaching function, at least 50% of the original scale should be increased in a short time. There are teachers' salaries and students' food subsidies ... National Southwest Associated University is short of money everywhere. The most aggrieved nature is the teaching building of the General Assembly. At that time, Mei Yiqi estimated that the Congress could be demobilized soon after the war, and spent the main financial resources on buying books and experimental equipment, scrimping and saving and digging holes in the school buildings.
The "dilapidated" school gate of National Southwest Associated University (network map)
At that time, famous architects Liang Sicheng and Lin Weiyin also arrived in Kunming. Mei Yiqi decided to ask Liang Sicheng and his wife to design a school building for the National Southwest Associated University, and Liang Sicheng and his wife accepted it gladly. It took the couple a month to come up with the first design scheme, and a first-class modern university in China was impressively written on paper.
However, the design scheme was quickly rejected on the grounds that the National Southwest Associated University could not afford so much money to build this first-class institution of higher learning in China. In the following two months, Liang Sicheng and his wife changed the design scheme from one draft to another: the high-rise became a low-rise, the low-rise became a bungalow, and the brick wall became an earth wall. Almost every time they revised the draft, Lin Weiyin cried. ...
When Liang Sicheng and his wife handed over the final draft of the design scheme, Huang Yusheng, the construction director, told him helplessly that after the study of the school committee, except for the blue tiles on the roof of the library and the tin roofs of some classrooms and the principal's office, all other buildings were covered with thatch, and the adobe walls were replaced with clay, and the usage of bricks and wood was reduced by half. I hope Liang Sicheng will make some local adjustments in the design scheme.
Liang Sicheng and Lin (network map)
At this time, Liang Sicheng is the last straw. He stormed into Mei Yiqi's office angrily, like a roaring lion, smashing the design drawings on Mei Yiqi's desk, leaving all the teachers' dignity and the relationship between superiors and subordinates behind.
"Change! Change! Change! How do you want me to change it? "
"Cheng Si, you listen to me, Cheng Si ... you calm down ..." Huang Yusheng chased him in.
"How do you want me to calm down?" Liang Sicheng twisted his face and opened his eyes with tears and laughter: "A thatched cottage? Isn't it built by every farmer in China? What do you want me to do with Liang Sicheng? "
Mei Yiqi put away the drawings that Liang Sicheng threw on the table one by one and looked at each other calmly: "Sicheng, the country is in trouble, can't you forgive me?"
"understand? Er, yes, yes, I ... "Liang Sicheng shook his fingers, but his throat choked:" I ... have revised it to the fifth draft, from high-rise to low-rise, from low-rise to bungalow, and now he wants me to build a thatched house. Well, a thatched cottage is a thatched cottage. Do you know how much wood farmers need to build a thatched cottage? Do you know that the wood you use now is not enough to build a standard thatched cottage? "
Huang Yusheng pulled Liang Sicheng away: "Sicheng, didn't I explain it clearly? Farmers have to live in thatched cottages all their lives, and we are a temporary university, and we will be demobilized to the north as soon as we win the Anti-Japanese War. What does it matter if we use less wood? Finding a thinner girder can also reduce the load on the upper part? "
Mei Yiqi added: "Moreover, the teachers of the Civil Engineering Department have calculated the amount of wood strictly, so there will be no problem from the perspective of safety. If you think it's finished, you can change it ... "
From left to right: Cha (President of National Southwest Associated University), Hu Shi, and He (Secretary General of Nankai University)
Hearing President Mei's words, Liang Sicheng's nose was a little sour. Tsinghua was the alma mater of many famous masters and scholars in China at that time, and also the alma mater of Liang Sicheng, a master architect. But now, his alma mater, not to mention the Tsinghua campus in those days, and the Yunnan college students across the street, is not an underground place at all. Liang Sicheng originally came to Mei Yiqi to resign today, but neither did Mei Yiqi nor Huang Yusheng. Can Liang Sicheng resign?
"Sicheng, the government has decided to commandeer our school building in Mengzi as an air base, and the College of Arts will soon move back to Kunming. Without these thatched houses, students would have classes in the open air, and everyone would be in a national disaster. Sicheng, forgive us for the last time with your generosity, okay? " Mei Yiqi pleaded.
Liang Sicheng's heart softened again. Tsinghua is Liang Sicheng's alma mater and Mei Yiqi is his teacher. In a country with teachers' dignity, perhaps no student dared to get so angry in front of Mei Yiqi like Liang Sicheng, but Mei Yiqi tolerated all this.
"Sicheng, when I return to Peiping after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, I will ask you to build a world-class Tsinghua campus. This is my reward ... OK?" Mei Yiqi's voice trembled a little.
-That day, Liang Sicheng shed tears!
In front of his former teacher, Liang Sicheng cried like an injured child. ...
National Southwest Associated University is perhaps the most painful and aggrieved project of Liang Sicheng, a master architect. Experts who wrote the history of the General Assembly could not face this cruel reality, so they had to give the master couple an ambiguous title "Wen Gu" in an attempt to protect Master Liang's prestige in the world. After the campus project is completed, the names of Liang Sicheng and Lin will never appear on the list of professors in The National SouthWest Associated University. ...
Half a year later, the low thatched cottage occupied the campus space of Southwest Associated University. People can hardly believe that these low and humble thatched cottages were designed by a world-famous architect.
Southwest University Campus (data map)
Library location (data map)
Library interior (data map)
Decades later, it was in the thatched cottage designed by Master Liang that a group of children wearing red mud sandals came out. They boarded the unattainable Nobel Prize podium in Stockholm, Sweden, detonated China's first atomic bomb and hydrogen bomb, and made China's first Billion Galaxy supercomputer and the first single-film optical fiber.
-National Southwest Associated University may also be the most outstanding project of Master Liang Sicheng's life.
Excerpted from Li Hongtao's Statue of Spirit-Documentary of National Southwest Associated University, published by Yunnan People's Publishing House 200 1.