Official
Publication of US-China Peoples Friendship Association, Chicago Chapter, www.uscpfa.com/chicago
Roger Noback, Chapter President and Editor,
630/762-8225 December 18,
2005
“The only way to have a friend is to be one.” –
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The scheduled venue, time, topic, and activity for the USCPFA
December 18 meeting are
2-4 p.m.
@ The Phoenix Inn, 608
Davis St., EVANSTON
60201
(Davis
St. & Chicago Av.)
(847/475-7782), a short walk from the Davis
St. “EL” stop in Evanston
The Design of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen’s
Mausoleum and the
Rebirth of China
By Delin Lai, Ph.D., Chinese Architectural
History, Tsinghua
University
The sublime mausoleum of Dr. Sun Yat-sen,
the founder of modern China, is situate
on a scenic peak of the Purple Mountain outside Nanjing. For those who have seen, the site is both
breathtaking and reverential.
This talk discusses the design (1925-1929) of this
most important monument of republican China, which resulted from a
competition sponsored by the Kuomintang.
The entries were to reflect Sun’s ideal for a modern China, to combine traditional
Chinese aesthetics with modern techniques and to abstractly represent new
political ideals, such as democracy and republican government, with a view, in
part, to the awakening of China. The presentation will include pictures and
discussion of those competing entries which were not selected, as well as
features of the winning design which, it was felt, most completely and
effectively met the standards and accomplished the goals of the competition.
The USCPFA-Chicago Chapter has a special attachment to this
subject, since the grandfather of the Chapter’s Executive Vice President,
Francis Li, was the personal lawyer to Dr. Sun.
All Chinese have a special bond with this topic, since, 80 years
after his death, Dr. Sun stands, not only as the symbol of the birth of the
modern China, but also as the shared symbol under which all China, mainland and
Taiwan, can be re-created as one. The
surprise, epoch-making visit to mainland China during the last week of
March, 2005 by the Vice President of the Taiwan Kuomintang, Chiang Pin-kung,
(within two weeks after passage of the Anti-Secession Law by the PRC’s National People’s Congress) evidences Dr. Sun’s
continued symbolic role. Chiang stopped
to pay homage at Sun’s mausoleum as a central focus of his week-long journey
north, up the coast from Guangzhou to meet with the PRC leadership on April 1
in Beijing, as reported exclusively in the April, 2005 Dragon’s Eye. (The Dragon’s Eye scooped the NY Times, Wall
Street Journal, Financial Times, and Chicago Tribune, none of whom reported
this momentous, history shattering weeklong trip.)
Delin Lai received his first Ph.D. in
Chinese Architectural History from Tsinghua University in 1992 and is the chief
compiler of Who’s Who in Modern Chinese Architecture, just published in China. This talk is based on a paper published in
the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians of March, 2005,
and is the subject of the thesis for his second Ph.D. in Art History at the University of Chicago. In addition to some research on traditional
Chinese architecture and Western architecture, his primary focus of study is
modern Chinese architectural history, on which he has published quite a number
of papers in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, touching upon such issues as the
formation of the modern Chinese building industry, the development of modern
architectural education in China, Chinese Style architectural designs and
Chinese architectural history. The Chapter
thanks member and friend, Katherine Tsiang Mino, Associate Director of the Center for the Art of East
Asia at the U.of C., who referred us to Delin, one of her Ph.D. students.
A talk on Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine
is planned for the Jan. 15, 2006 Chapter meeting.
The Dec. 18 meeting is at the Phoenix Inn, 608 Davis St., Evanston, 60201 (corner of Davis St. and Chicago Av.) near the Davis Street “EL” stop (847/475-7782). Typically, the regular monthly Chapter
meeting is held on the third Sunday of the month and includes a
delicious traditional Chinese multi-course meal, which begins at 2
pm;
the hour long luncheon talk (with Q&A) begins at 3 pm; and all this is only
$15. The venue for approx. half the
meetings is in Chicago’s Chinatown; the venues for the other
half of the meetings are in the north and west Chicago suburbs (e.g, Evanston and Naperville). Please honor the generosity of this
presentation with the courtesy of your attendance, and bring a friend. Cfade121805FinalemaRev