Second College Building of the Hunan University Architectural Complex

In 1925, the architect Liu Dunzhen sat at his drafting board to design the Second College Building, a structure that pulled Hunan University out of the ancient, walled confines of the Yuelu Academy. Completed in 1929 for fifty thousand yuan, this two-story brick-and-wood building served as the new home for the university's law and commercial departments. It stands at the foot of Yuelu Mountain, representing a massive educational shift.

Walk up to the central entrance, where four semicircular brick pilasters with grooved top ornamentations form a protective vestibule. Touch the exterior walls. The smooth, machine-made red fair-faced bricks were shipped down the river from Wuhan. Some of these bricks still bear the stamped mark of their makers, 'De Ji Da Chun,' pressed into the clay nearly a century ago. Above, the roof features a Western-style four-sloped hip design. Its eaves curve upward with Chinese flying eaves and glazed, sauce-colored cylinder tiles. This eclectic style reflects the architectural debates of the 1920s, blending Western engineering with local traditions.

Inside, the central hall opens to a symmetrical, red-wood split double-run staircase. The classrooms, designed with high 3.9-meter ceilings, once echoed with the lectures of early professors like Li Da. The original wooden windows and handrails remain intact, preserved through decades of change.

The building carries physical wounds from the mid-century. If you walk to the northwestern exterior wall, you will find jagged bullet and shrapnel scars left by Japanese aerial bombings during the War of Resistance. These deep craters in the red brickwork were intentionally left exposed during renovations, serving as a quiet record of survival.

Over the decades, the building adapted. In 1988, an expansion increased its floor area to 2,929 square meters to accommodate a physics laboratory. Today, after a careful restoration completed in early 2021, the building houses the School of Chinese Language and Literature. It remains a functioning space of quiet study, where the past is written directly into the brick.