Huang Zuoshen (; 1915 – 1975; also: Henry Huang; Henry Wong; ''Huang Zuoxin'') was a pioneer of modern architecture in China. Huang attended the School of the Architectural Association in London from 1933 to 1937, and followed

Walter Gropius Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (; 18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-born American architect and founder of the Bauhaus, Bauhaus School, who is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modernist architecture. He was a founder of ...

in 1939 to the United States to study at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, instead of taking an offer from

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , ; ), was a Swiss-French architectural designer, painter, urban planner and writer, who was one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture ...

for an internship in his studio. He returned to China in 1942, after being invited to found the Department of Architecture at St. John's University in

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

– where his teachings would be first in the country to follow the

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the , was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined Decorative arts, crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., ...

School. He also helped establish a practice called Five United, which was a disparate group of Chinese architects who had mostly studied at British universities. The others in the group were

Wang Da-hong Wang Da-hong ( zh, t=王大閎; 6 July 1917 – 28 May 2018) was a Chinese-born Taiwanese architect. Regarded as one of the pioneers of modernist architecture in Taiwan, his architectural philosophy, whilst very modern in its application, was in ...

, Chen Chan-siang, Luke Him Sau and Arthur Kun-Shuan Cheang. Huang emphasised Functionalism and

Modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

in his teachings at St. John's University, and was later Founding Director of the Department of Architecture at Tongji University 同济大学 from 1952 to 1954. Huang Zuoshen's father once served as Comprador of Shell International Oil Products B.V. for this, during the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...

he and his brother

Huang Zuolin Huang Zuolin (; October 24, 1906 – June 1, 1994) was a Chinese film director. Life Huang Zuolin whose ancestral home was at Panyu, Guangdong Province, was born in Tianjin. He graduated from Tientsin Anglo-Chinese College in 1925. During the p ...

(an important film director of 20th century China) suffered because of their father's affiliation with a western business entity. Both were subjected to severe interrogation, Huang Zuoshen had been imprisoned under witness by his students at Tonji University 同济大学. (''

Life and Death in Shanghai ''Life and Death in Shanghai'' () is an autobiographical memoir published in November 1987 by Chinese author Yao Nien-Yuan under the pen name Nien Cheng. Written while in exile in the United States, it tells the story of Cheng's arrest during the ...

'' Author:

Nien Cheng Nien Cheng or Zheng Nian (January 28, 1915 – November 2, 2009) was the pen name of Yao Nien-Yuan (). She was a Chinese people, Chinese author known for recounting her experiences during the Cultural Revolution in her memoir ''Life and Deat ...

Pg. 23-5, 28; 22-9; Cheng was a close friend of Huang Zuoshen and his wife Winifred Chen. They met in Europe then continued to be friends once upon their return to Shanghai.) He was survived by his wife Winifred Cheng 程玖 (1924–1977) she was the daughter of 程克 Cheng Ke (1878-1936) an important political figure in the Republic of China, and his three sons.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Zuoshen, Huang Chinese architects 1915 births 1975 deaths Harvard Graduate School of Design alumni Alumni of the Architectural Association School of Architecture Academic staff of Tongji University