Discover Datong
Liang Sicheng Memorial Hall
梁思成纪念馆
China's only museum devoted to Liang Sicheng, the architectural historian who surveyed Datong's Liao temples in 1933 and effectively rediscovered them for the modern world. A branch of the city museum, tucked under the eastern city wall.
The story
What makes this place special
This is the only museum in China dedicated to Liang Sicheng, the architectural historian who, with Lin Huiyin, surveyed and recorded China's surviving ancient timber buildings in the 1930s. Liang made four research trips to Shanxi; his 1933 Datong survey produced the measured drawings of Huayan and Shanhua temples that remain the foundation of their study and of their later restoration. The memorial is a branch of the Datong Museum, housed in a two-courtyard building in traditional style beside the eastern city wall.
What you’ll discover
Four small exhibition rooms around two courtyards, holding documents, photographs, books and reproductions of Liang's measured drawings, with the Shanxi field trips and the Datong survey given the most space. It is a reading museum rather than an object museum - there is little to look at that is not on a panel - and takes 30 to 45 minutes.
A little local insight
Good to know before you go
- Visit after Huayan and Shanhua temples, not before. The drawings here are of those two buildings, and they only land if you have just stood in them.
- The 1930s survey photographs show the temples before restoration, which is the most useful thing in the building - you can see exactly what was rebuilt and what is original.
- It is small and text-heavy, with limited English. If you are not interested in architectural history, this is a legitimate skip; if you are, it is the best half hour in Datong.
- It sits against the eastern city wall, so it combines with a walk on the wall's eastern stretch.
- The story of the Beijing city walls, which Liang fought and failed to save, is background that makes Datong's own wall reconstruction read very differently.
When to come
Any time; it is indoors and never busy. Late afternoon, after a morning on the temples, is the logical slot.
Getting around
Single-storey courtyard building. Courtyards are flat paved stone and the exhibition rooms are entered over low traditional thresholds and one or two steps - a wheelchair needs a small assist at each doorway but the layout is otherwise level and short. Easy for a bad knee. Distances are tiny and there is seating.
Worth knowing before you go
His measured drawings of Huayan and Shanhua are on display - take photos of them and compare with the halls themselves, which are a short walk away.
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