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Designer: Yen Liang
Yen Liang / 1908–2001
Chinese American architect and designer Yen Liang first immigrated to the United States in 1928 to continue his architectural studies at Yale, M.I.T. and Cornell. In 1932, he secured a position in the first group of apprentices selected to study at the experimental Taliesin Fellowship under Frank Lloyd Wright. Liang would later return to China for eleven years and enjoyed a successful architectural practice, which he credited in part to his apprenticeship at Taliesin. During the war, he served with the US Army in China, even designing a home for a top military official.
In the late 1940s, Liang returned once again to the States working briefly at Taliesin before taking a position as chief designer at the New York firm of Harrison & Abramovitz. There, he contributed designs to the United Nations Buildings and the striking First Presbyterian Church of Stamford, Connecticut (affectionately known as the Fish Church) among many others.
In addition to architectural pursuits, Liang also wrote and illustrated children’s books including a sweet story from 1958 called The Skyscraper. After retiring from architecture, he moved to California and worked in ceramics, made music and designed furniture. Liang died in 2001—within ten days of his beloved wife Dolly—gifting a $100,000 bequest to the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.