This study examines the campus-planning projects (1920–1937) of Kwan, Chu & Yang, Architects & Engineers (KCY), a major Chinese firm, against the backdrop of Sino-American cross-cultural knowledge transfer. It argues that their work exhibited a distinct compositional tendency derived from the partners’ U.S. Beaux-Arts education and contemporary American planning theory. Through historical analysis and case studies of four university projects, this research examines how composition-based spatial unity engaged with specific Chinese site conditions. The results indicate that early projects negotiated irregular boundaries, while later ones grappled with complex topography, such as historic gardens and hills. Although often unrealized, these grand schemes embodied a scientific planning methodology and served as aspirational blueprints. This study concludes that compositional practice was a significant part of China’s architectural modernization, representing both a professional design approach and a cultural response to the quest for modernity and national identity.
Lv et al. (Fri,) studied this question.