sun yat-sen university

sun yat-sen university was originally named as guangdong university, which was founded by dr. sun yat-sen in 1924 and located at #215 of wenming road. in order to commemorate dr. sun yat-sen, the university was renamed as sun yat-sen university in july 1926 (the 15th year of the republic of china). later, the university was moved to tianhe wushan (the location of technology university of south china and agricultural university of south china). in 1952, after department adjustment, certain departments of lingnan university were merged into sun yat-sen university. and then, sun yat-sen university was moved to the location of lingnan university. sun yat-sen university is a comprehensive university with the liberal arts and sciences directly under ministry of education and one of the national key universities.

sun yat-sen university has a long history, high reputation and rich education resources. many famous professors and scholars, such as ding ying, cheng fangwu, yu dafu, xu deyan, yu pingbo, etc, ever worked as teachers in the university. guo moruo ever acted as professor and director of liberal arts. lu xun ever acted as director of literature department and education administration. after the founding of the p.r.c, many famous professors ever worked as teachers in the university, i.e. chen yingke, liang fangzhong, rong geng, jiang jingbo, pu zhelong, shang chengzuo, li yuesheng, etc.

 after the adjustment and reform in 1978, the university set graduate schools, 11 colleges, 30 departments, 23 research bases and 35 education and research centers in 1996.

on october 26, 2001, sun yat-sen university was united with sun yat-sen medical university and named as sun yat-sen university, which became the most famous institution of higher education in south china. at present, sun yat-sen university is a comprehensive university including the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, technical science, medical science and management science. there are 11 disciplines leading to doctorate and/or master degrees, 99 specialties lead to doctorate degree, 176 specialties lead to master degree, 5 branches of studies leading to professional degrees, 9 post-doctorate research floating stations, 8 key disciplines at national level, 31 key disciplines at guangdong provincial level, 6 national bases of fundamental sciences research & training for liberal arts and science and the first athletic training base for college student in china.

the location of sun yat-sen university was originally the gezhi college, which was founded by new church of american christianism. in 1927, gezhi college was taken over by chinese and renamed as lingnan university. in 1952, lingnan university was united into sun yat-sen university after department adjustment. at present, some modern architecture in sun yat-sen university belongs to occidental classical architecture, of which the most famous one is martin hall in qing dynasty.

martin hall is located at xingang road, haizhu district of guangzhou city, namely the campus of sun yat-sen university. new york stordon office founded it in 1905 and collins was responsible for the construction. american directorate of lingnan university raised the funds and mr. henry martin made the maximum donation. so it was named as martin hall to honor him. it was one of the pioneer architectures in lingnan university and used as classroom, laboratory and library originally. it was ever rebuilt in 1965.

martin hall is 50.68m in length, 16.14m in width, 15.8m in height and 2,335㎡ in building area. it is built with bricks, wood, stone and reinforced concretes, which belongs to arch construction. it is surrounded by red brick colonnades and divided into east, west and middle hall by red bricks with andirons built on the partitions. the building has three floors, basement, front & back door, granite sidesteps, floor slaps, tile ceiling and concrete terrace. the outer wall is decorated simply. the colonnades are built with red bricks in shape of square with decoration on shaft and chapiter. as a result of adoption of reinforced concrete, the colonnades can bear the weight of the building independent of arch. although the 1st floor is built in shape of arch with brick, it is only a decoration. the 2nd and 3rd floor adopts no arch. the construction and decoration retains some “colony” practices. glazing has been added on the colonnades.

as proven, martin hall is the earliest reinforced concrete architecture in china, which has significant reference value to the development of modern architecture research.

 martin hall was awarded as national excellent modern architecture in 1990 and ranked as guangzhou historical monuments & cultural relics.

 [campus and architecture of sun yat-sen university]
sun yat-sen university was originally named as guangdong university, which was founded by dr. sun yat-sen in november 1924 and united with guangdong national senior normal school, guangdong provincial agriculture college, guangdong provincial law university. it was originally located at wenming road of guangzhou city, i.e., the location of the former guangdong normal school and the present guangdong provincial museum. in order to commemorate dr. sun yat-sen, the university was renamed as sun yat-sen university in 1926. owing to the narrow place and simple schoolhouse, southwest government administration committee appropriated enormous funds to rebuild the new schoolhouse in 1932. it was located at shipai wushan, which was specified by sun yat-sen. the principal, zou lu, took charge of it and gave orders to finish the project within 30 month. the project was scheduled to be in three stages.

the 1st project was in the charge of yang xizong who was an architect studying in america. since 1933, he had designed two teaching buildings for college of agriculture, four teaching buildings for college of science, one teaching building for college of law, dormitories and canteens. ling keming’s design adopted chinese traditional palace style with reinforced concrete.

according to occidental classical architecture, the “chemistry building” for college of agriculture is built in shape of square. the appearance seems to be in two floors, actually, in 3 floors, for the ground floor is designed as foundation. the colonnade supports the two floors. there is a huge space in the roof. the teaching building for the college of science appears to be in shape of “u” standing upside down, with two floors. it is called “red building” for its yellow ridge, green tile and red wall. the building is in chinese traditional architecture style with decorative pattern in chinese ethical style. the foundation, arch, railing and colorful pictures are also in chinese traditional style. the colonnades and ceiling architrave are designed according to occidental ordinary architecture ways. the teaching building for the college of physics has a unique appearance. it appears to be in shape of “u” standing upside down. the main building has three floors with temple roof and single brim; the two side buildings have two floors with inclined roof; the other buildings have two floors with inclined roof and single brim, which appears to be a magnificent picture.

on the campus of sun yat-sen university, there is a huge stone with sun yat-sen’s instruction-- “study extensively; enquire accurately; reflect carefully; discriminate clearly; practice earnestly”, which was handwritten by the principal, zou lu, in the 15th year of the republic of china.