Chinese and Christian? The architecture of West China Union University

Abstract

Founded in 1910, West China Union University (WCUU) was among the earliest Christian universities to be established by Western missionaries in China. In response to politico-cultural tensions between the missionaries and the local community, the designers of WCUU carefully reconciled a sense of ‘Chinese-ness’ and Christianity in its site planning and architectural design. Their ‘gestures’ to the local audiences included planning strategies, architectural signs, spatial arrangements, and other ‘architectural’ means. The built form of the campus was shaped through negotiations between various groups, during which the Beaux-Arts plan of the campus was compromised in response to local resistance. The ‘gestures’, or ‘meanings’, embedded in the built forms were also subject to various local interpretations across different periods, during which the interpreters were involved in the ongoing revision of architectural meaning. The ‘Chinese-ness’ of the WCUU campus resulted from the architect’s efforts to study and represent local architectural characteristics in Southwest China and the Chinese interpreters’ continuous attempt to ‘sinicise’ the campus, aiming to invest it with Chinese meanings via interpretation and sometimes physical alteration. This article explores the creation, transition, and interpretation of the WCUU campus planning and architectural design in terms of the communicative function of architecture and the interaction of multiple participants against the shifting contexts of modern China. Focusing on the intertwined relationship between the built form, history, and the interpretation/experience of architecture, a wider socio-cultural dialogue is illustrated between China and the Western world in the twentieth century.