Celebrity Architecture by the West Lake: Chen Daqi’s Former Residence

The former residence of Chen Daqi, also known as Changqiao Villa, is located at No. 138 Nanshan Road, Qingbo Subdistrict, Shangcheng District, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. It is now a historic building in Hangzhou.

Chen Daqi (1886-1983), also known as Bai Nian, was a pioneer of modern psychology in China. In his youth, he studied at the Xu family school in Shangshu Hall in Haiyan, Zhejiang, and later learned English at the Shanghai Guangfang Dialect Center. In 1903, he went to Japan to study psychology and obtained a bachelor's degree in literature in 1912. In the same year, he returned to China and served as the president of Zhejiang Higher Education College and a professor at Zhejiang Private Law and Political Specialized School. In 1914, he became a professor of psychology at Peking University. In 1917, he established China's first psychology laboratory at Peking University, which had a pioneering influence on early psychology work in China.

The former residence of Chen Daqi was built between 1941 and 1942. It is surrounded by walls, with gatehouses and a main gate on the south side.

The main building is a Western-style building located in the northern part of the courtyard, facing south. It has an irregular geometric floor plan and is a three-story brick and wood structure with four wide rooms.

The middle two rooms on the south facade are recessed as the entrance, and the second floor has a balcony. The roof is composed of multiple levels of sloping roofs and covered with machine-made gray tiles. On the north side of the main building, there is a row of auxiliary rooms, consisting of five small bungalows. The exterior walls still retain the boundary stone inscribed with "Chen Jie."

This architectural features a complete layout, with simple decoration and a beautiful surrounding environment. Although Chen Daqi did not live in this villa for a long time, this historic building retains traces of his life here. Later, several generals who made significant contributions to the liberation cause of the Chinese people lived here, giving the villa the nickname "General's Building." These distinguished generals have added profound historical and cultural significance to this old building.