Shanxi is a repository of ancient Chinese architecture, and is home to more than 80 percent of the ancient wooden buildings of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and earlier. Yet, the couple visited the province just four times.

In July 1937, as they left Foguang Temple, they received news of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in Beijing, marking the full-scale outbreak of the Chinese people's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45). Amid national turmoil they threw themselves into protecting ancient buildings.

By that time, young women who studied architecture at Pennsylvania University were finally able to treasure their diplomas, a joy Lin never experienced.

After her death, she was buried at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in Beijing, which she designed, taking a revered place with many other important figures of modern Chinese history.

The words that her husband Liang Sicheng chose to inscribe on her tombstone could be no simpler, nor more fitting — "Lin Huiyin, architect".