Photo/ Wang Depan
Photo/ Wang Depan
In 1914, the Yale-China Association hired the famous American architect Murphy to design the campus of the Xiangya Medical Education System. Murphy, who has visited China many times, is deeply influenced by traditional Chinese architecture and culture, and tries to find a balance between Western modern and Eastern traditional architecture. He devoted his life to "preserving China's architectural heritage in a complex that embodies america's most modern design and construction philosophy." The Xiangya Hospital Building in the early Xiangya Architectural Complex is a typical representative of the early architecture of the "Revival of Classical Chinese Architecture" proposed by Murphy, which laid the foundation for his later design and construction of a large number of buildings such as Yenching University and Jinling Women's University, and had a great influence on the history of modern and contemporary Chinese architecture.
Photo/ Wang Depan
Photo/ Wang Depan
After Murphy's many adjustments to the design, at the end of 1917, a Chinese-style building with a cornice bucket pavilion and a brick-concrete structure was finally completed in Mayuanling, the northern suburb of Changsha. It adopts brick and wood structure, mountain-style roof: the inner wall surface is covered with reinforced concrete, the cornice boot head claw corner, the upper decoration is back to the finish; the top cover is maroon cylinder tile, the valley yellow ridge, partially embellished with traditional Chinese patterns; the outer wall is the original gray red brick. This Xiangya Red House, which blends the rhythms of the East and the West, has more than 300 houses and can accommodate 120 beds, which is the most beautiful hospital building in China at that time and the best of the buildings in the central and southern regions, and it is also a sign that people take boats to travel north to south through the Xiangjiang River to check in Changsha.
Photo/ Wang Depan
Photo/ Wang Depan
Photo/ Wang Depan
Before 1942, for local and foreign refugees in Changsha, the Xiangya Red House with golden glazed tiles and red and white walls and its campus were their paradise. Whether it was the Wenxi fire or the First and Second Sino-Japanese Battles of Changsha, the entire Red House and its campus were overcrowded to the point of extreme severity, and were a refuge for thousands of refugees. The corridors and corridors in the Red Chamber, but if you can put down a bed board, the medical staff will not leave any inpatients. During the Third Sino-Japanese Battle of Changsha, the Japanese army invaded and occupied the Xiangya campus, and on January 4, 1942, when the defeated Japanese army collapsed, the Xiangya campus was burned, the wooden components of the Red Chamber were destroyed, the metal structure was gone, and the permanent firewall body stood. The Xiangya Red Chamber that people see now is a general building restored after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War.
Photo/ Wang Depan
Photo/ Wang Depan
In 2010, after the new medical building of Xiangya Hospital was officially put into use, the repair of the Red Chamber was put on the hospital's agenda.
Photo/ Wang Depan
In order to restore the original historical appearance of the Red Chamber to the greatest extent, it is necessary to use a special German technology to clean the red paint on the previous maintenance brush, revealing the original appearance of red bricks and white ash, and even the traces of the Japanese army setting fire and burning have been preserved; for the red bricks with few edges and few corners, the brick powder is filled with a special formula, and after solidification, it is integrated with the original red bricks, this technology is still used for the first time in Hunan; every tile on the roof is removed and cleaned, and the parts that can be retained and reused are re-installed as they are The windows also completely restore the wooden style of the past, and create small lattices by hand.
Photo/ Wang Depan
Photo/ Wang Depan
After 9 years of separation, the Xiangya Red House has been repaired and repeated the old appearance. In late July 2019, the Xiangya Red House was reopened as a medical position, divided into two areas: medical area and office area, and the medical area is equipped with outpatient clinics, wards, ICUs and Phase I clinical trial wards for scientific research. Clear water red brick walls, mountain roofs, yellow glazed tiles... The appearance of the Red Chamber more than 100 years ago has been restored to the greatest extent. Stepping into the interior of the Red Chamber, from the terrazzo floor of the operating room and a number of fireplaces, to the central air conditioning, network control system, access control system, and nursing call system, it is like a standard modern hospital, as if riding a time machine, from a hundred years ago to modern times.