A Pictorial History of Chinese Architecture

Many admirers of Liang Ssu - ch' eng and of Chinese architecture have joined in the efforts to get his long - lost hook into the hands of the Western readers for whom he intended it.

Professor Wu Liang - yong, head of the Department of Architecture at Tsing Hua University, led the way when he asked me in 1980 to edit the manuscript and find an American publisher for it. I was happy to resume the responsibilities Liang had given me thirty - three years before.

When The MIT Press, long noted for the quality of its architectural hooks, accepted Liang' s hook for publication, the project was well started. However, the problems of editing such a complex volume across the Pacific loomed large. Unquestionably our basic good fortune was the whole - hearted cooperation of Liang' s second wife, Lin Chu. She is a member of the Department of Architecture at Tsing Hua University, very cognizant of her husband's work, and devoted to his memory. We met in Peking in 1979 and worked together there in 1980 and 1982. In addition to performing her fulltime job, for three years she has shared with me endless details of checking, numbering,, and labeling illustrations, supplied me with missing items, and answered my constant questions. Our airmail correspondence, she writing in Chinese, I in English, has been prompt and unceasing. She, a dear friend, deserves my primary gratitude.