ABSTRACT
Peking University was founded in 1898 in central Beijing, where it remained until 1952 when, cramped for space, the university relocated to its present site in the Haidian district of northwest Beijing, termed the university district in reference to its dense cluster of higher education institutions. The university appropriated the grounds and buildings of Yenching University, a Christian college that had been founded early in the century but was closed following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. The Yenching site had an illustrious heritage. In the eighteenth century, Emperor Ch’ien Lung’s Minister of State, Ho Shen, developed the land into a country estate, known as Shu Ch’un Yuan, or the Garden of Modest Gaiety. After the emperor’s death, Ho Shen was executed and his estate was transformed into a series of parks, palaces, gardens and residences by the Manchu Emperors. By the time Yenching University acquired the site in 1920, it had lapsed into a state of neglect, yet with its panorama of man-made hills, grottoes, islands and lakes, it still possessed the essence of a beautiful, imperial setting. This setting Yenching was to fully exploit in the construction of its new campus, between 1921 and 1926.
