Q-Can Art Museum, Shanghai

I step into the first room of the Q-Can Art Museum in Shanghai and come face to face with a massive wooden model. A temple, standing at the center of the space. Around it, photographs and documents trace the life and work of Liang Sicheng. A couple of long tables display archival materials, sketching out the man and the architect. The exhibition isn’t empty, as I expected. Nine people are here with me. Considering the subject matter, that’s practically a crowd.  

Liang Sicheng was born on April 20, 1901, in Tokyo, Japan. His father, the prolific scholar and reformist Liang Qichao, was living in exile after the failed Hundred Days’ Reform. When the Qing dynasty collapsed in 1911, the family returned to China. His father briefly held a position in the new Republic’s government. But when power fell into the hands of the Beiyang Clique—a coalition of northern warlords—Liang Qichao stepped away from politics and devoted himself to introducing Western thought to Chinese society through literature and social movements.  

Liang Sicheng grew up in this progressive atmosphere, surrounded by culture and innovation. In 1915, he entered Tsinghua College in Beijing, marking the beginning of his journey to uncover what he would later call the grammar of Chinese architecture.  

The photos pull me in. Liang clinging to ancient beams, squeezed into corners, wedged between pillars. Like he’s not just studying these structures—he’s part of them. An extension of the wood and stone.  

Then, the sketches. Small notebooks, stuffed with drawings so precise they look like film storyboards. I know this style. It reminds me myself and my friends in Rome, set designers mapping out entire worlds with a pencil and a scrap of paper.    

The photographs printed on mirrors throw me off. Reflections upon reflections, images multiplying into infinity. Maybe that’s the point. Liang’s architecture reflects his time, his culture, and now it reflects us, the spectators, staring back through his vision. 

Second room. A video plays. Liang, standing with the world’s top architects, designing the United Nations headquarters. He wasn’t just a historian, a preserver of old temples. He was shaping the future, one blueprint at a time. He talked about orienting buildings toward the sun—not for beauty, but for life. More light, less energy waste. Feng Shui? Maybe. Or maybe just common sense. Still today, entire districts in China follow this principle.    

Third room. Another massive structure. The Foguang Temple, in wood seems even more beautiful, a gift. The photographs multiply. Liang must have loved photography. That detail makes him feel closer. I can picture him, camera always around his neck, always looking.   

In front of me, a panel titled The Evolution of Chinese Orders. Similar to the Greco-Roman orders but with one fundamental difference: they don’t change. From 857 to the Qing dynasty in 1776, the principles remain constant, as if time itself operates under a different logic here.  

And then, Lin Huiyin. Always beside him in the photos. Wife, collaborator, architect, writer. What was their relationship really like? The books and TV dramas paint them as legends, their love story bigger than their buildings. But I wonder—did they argue over sketches? Did they get lost in their work, forgetting everything else?

Four watercolors. Just four, but stunning. They could have been painted by Alma-Tadema: soft light, impossible beauty, frozen time.  

Finally, the last great star of the exhibition: the Fogong Temple pagoda, studied by Liang in 1933. Not his creation—but his discovery. “Without seeing this tower,” he wrote, “one cannot comprehend the full potential of wooden architecture.”  

Liang wasn’t just an academic. He was an explorer, hunting down China’s lost masterpieces. In 1932, he hit the road. Found forgotten gems: the Foguang Temple (857), the Temple of Solitary Joy (984), the Yingzhou Pagoda (1056), the Zhaozhou Bridge (589-617). If not for him, many would have been lost.  

And that sticks with me. There was a time when you could be many things at once. Today, everything’s about specialization. Branding. Pick a niche, stay in your lane. The internet made knowledge infinite, but it also flattened people into content machines. Liang’s life proves otherwise. You can be an architect, a historian, a photographer, a writer. You can be everything.

Lin’s niece, the architect and artist Maya Lin—best known for designing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington—told Smithsonian Magazine in 2017: “Most people in China know more about Liang and Lin’s personalities and love lives than their work.”  

“But from an architectural point of view, they are hugely important,” she continued. “If it weren’t for them, we would have no record of so many ancient Chinese styles, which simply disappeared.”  

The last room is the spectacle. Immersive projections. Huge, cinematic quotes. A voiceover, deep and dramatic. The predictable ending.  

I walk out into the Shanghai night. Liang Sicheng wasn’t just an architect. He was a storyteller, using stone and wood instead of words. A man who knew that time is an illusion—at least for those who build.