the tragic architects

​梁思成 (Liáng Sīchéng) and 林徽因 (Lín Huīyīn) were an architect power couple. After studying together at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1920s, they got married and did most of their projects together.

They did a titanic amount of work cataloguing traditional architecture all over China, they designed the famous obelisk, “Monument to the People’s Heroes” in front of the Forbidden City, and they are widely admired for their involvement in preserving Bĕijīng’s historical architecture.

However, they are mostly famous for their riveting love story. Lín was always enchanting, courted by married men long before she met Liáng. Via her popular salons in Bĕijīng, she met philosopher Jīn Yuèlín, and suddenly she was in love with two men.

The three of them were all good friends, and the decade-long tension was painful, epic, tragic, and the subject of much writing and filmmaking. Jīn never married, ever watching from the sideline.

Two thirds star-crossed. Baidu Baike