Planning a Christian campus in Quasi-colonial China: Lingnan University, Guangzhou, 1904–1931

Abstract

ABSTRACT Constructed from 1904 to 1931 in Guangzhou, Lingnan University was among the thirteen Christian universities founded by Western missionaries in China. It featured a hybrid campus with ‘Chinese-style’ buildings disposed on a Beaux-Arts planning scheme. This article argues that the campus planning and architectural design of Lingnan University was shaped by the unique quasi-colonial power interactions in Guangzhou involving both cooperation and conflict between multiple forces – Western missionaries and architects, local governments, merchants both local and overseas, and ordinary people in Guangzhou. Responding to the shifting social contexts, Lingnan contributed to the modernization of Guangzhou’s city plan in the early twentieth century. The architectural design of Lingnan University exemplified a re-invention of Chinese architectural styles in response to Guangzhou’s quasi-colonial context, achieved through the efforts of its American architects to learn and adapt ‘Chinese-ness’ in their building designs, and the political and financial support of local Chinese people and overseas Chinese merchants. The concept of Chinese architecture was not settled at Lingnan, but nevertheless the Beaux-Arts campus and its building designs were interpreted by multiple groups and were later adopted and modified by Chinese architects, illuminating a broader cross-cultural dialogue between China and the West.