Professor Lamb Ping Yin
林炳賢敎授
(1901–1986)
Class of 1918 - Modernist Architecture Educator
1918屆畢業 — 現代建築敎育家
P.Y. Lamb graduated from St. Paul’s College in 1918. A US-trained architect, from 1929, Lamb taught architecture at Tangshan Engineering College, Chiao-tung University, then known as the ‘Cornell of the East’. Lamb returned to Hong Kong in 1949, where he continued his architectural work.
Lamb trained in the USA, obtaining his degree from Ohio Northern University, and later qualified as a Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) member. Originally practising in Tianjin, Lamb joined Tangshan Engineering College in 1929 as an assistant professor, where he taught for nearly twenty years, rising to lead the architecture department. The school moved to Guizhou during the Second Sino-Japanese War. In teaching, Lamb was known for his clarity, fairness, and generosity, allowing a generation of Chinese architects to find their footing. Students included Tsinghua lecturer and urban planner Zheng Xiaoxie and senior Chinese Academy of Engineering member She Junnan, who credited Lamb with ‘bringing me into the world of modernist architecture’.
Lamb returned to Hong Kong in 1949, where he joined Hazeland & Co. During Hong Kong's post-war boom, the company built schools, homes, and factories, helping to shape the city’s look. Among his works was Chungking Mansions (1961) in Tsim Sha Tsui, a reflection of the city’s unfettered ambition and optimism.