The Indigenous Adaptation of Modern Chinese Church Universities: A Case Study of The Main Building of Fu Jen Catholic University

Abstract

At the end of the 19th century, many church cases occurred, which seriously affected Christian missionary activities in China and forced missionaries to think about the relationship between the Christian church and the people in China. After that, a movement for the indigenous adaptation of Christianity gradually emerged, with church schools becoming one of the main representatives of indigenisation. The Main Building of Fu Jen Catholic University, designed by Dom Adelbert Gresnigt, is a good example of the indigenous adaptation of the church university in this context. This paper analyses the design approach of the Main Building of Fu Jen Catholic University, extracts the embodiment of the Chinese traditional revival style and summarises the characteristics and reasons for the indigenous adaptation of the Main Building compared with other church university cases. The results show that the Main Building of Fu Jen Catholic University has features such as a traditional Chinese roof and decoration in the context of the Catholic indigenisation movement but is more conservative in design and plainer in colour than similar buildings. Gresnigt,  as both a priest and architect, designed Fu Jen Catholic University with a more Catholic character and religious atmosphere than other church universities.