As I’m sure you’ve noticed, we’ve featured several architects, all of whom are Pritzker Prize winners. Today’s hero is the 34th winner, Wang Shu from China. He is a visionary architect who has mastered the art of evoking these feelings through his unique designs. Let’s dive into Wang Shu’s world and discover how his architecture makes us feel.
Understanding Wang Shu
Wang Shu was born in 1963 in Urumqi, Xinjiang. With his wife Lu Wenyu, he co-founded the Amateur Architecture Studio. He and his wife maintain a low public profile, with little information about their personal lives. Wang Shu’s approach is rooted in a deep respect for tradition, yet he skillfully weaves in modern elements. His work feels like a poetic dialog between past and present, creating spaces that resonate with cultural meaning.
His Architectural Career
Wang Shu graduated from the Architecture Department of Nanjing Institute of Technology in 1985 and obtained his master’s degree in 88. He created his first work, a youth center in Haining near Hangzhou in 1990, and founded a studio with his wife in 1997. In 2012, he gained international recognition by becoming the first Chinese architect to win the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize. This honor recognizes his commitment to sustainable and culturally rich architecture. In addition to his architectural work, Wang Shu also focuses on education and research.
Some of Wang Shu’s Architectural Works
Wang Shu’s works are fewer compared to Tadao Ando‘s, while the following are a few representative architectural works.
Art Museum of Ningbo
Opened in 2005, the Ningbo Art Museum is a comprehensive art museum with lecture halls, presentation halls, and galleries in addition to art collections. It was originally an abandoned shipping building. Wang Shu did not choose to rebuild it but kept the internal structure. The architectural style of Ningbo Art Museum softens the Greek classical architectural style and modern minimalist style and adopts the green brick building materials of Ningbo’s residential buildings and the steel and wood building materials of harbor ships.
Strolling through the museum is like traveling through time and space. The walls are made of historic bricks and tiles, whispering stories of the past. Here, art and architecture blend together, allowing visitors to reminisce about the cultural tapestry of China.
Ningbo Museum
The Ningbo Museum, a national-level museum showcasing local humanity, history, and art, opened in 2008. From the outside, the museum looks like a historical ship. And this is because Ningbo is a harbor city and shipping is an important development history here. The exterior walls are a mixture of “valve walls” and “bamboo formwork concrete”, lined with reinforced concrete walls. The architectural design carries forward the traditional architectural culture of Ningbo and carries historical information.
Xiangshan Central Campus of China Academy of Art
The campus is located in Hangzhou, surrounded by a natural environment, so Wang Shu paid special attention to integrating the building with the landscape when designing the campus. Once again, tiles are used, and although the overall structure is concrete, the roof is vertically tiled. This style is also a reinterpretation of traditional Chinese architecture.
The designed campus focuses on open space and natural lighting. The buildings are constructed from local materials, giving the impression that they have grown organically from the natural landscape. Teachers and students are immersed in an environment that encourages exploration and innovation.
Fuchun Mountain Pavilion
The building, also located in Hangzhou, bears a resemblance to the Xiangshan Campus from the outside, with a similar sense of overlap, and both are surrounded by a natural environment. The stones that make up the facade and roof of the Fuchunshan Pavilion are all sourced locally from Fuyang and hand-polished by a team of professional craftsmen that Wang Shu has been working with.
The whole building has staggered heights and stretches of corridors and eaves, like a famous painting, resembling the shape of Fuchun Mountain by the Fuchun River. Here you can feel a profound sense of peace and integration with nature. It is a space that invites meditation and reflection, offering a pause from the hustle and bustle of modern life.
His architectural style
It is easy to see from these buildings that Wang Shu’s works have a strong Chinese architectural style and he likes to use traditional and local building materials. His use of natural materials and organic forms creates spaces full of vitality and a sense of nurturing. His architecture incorporates traditional building techniques and materials that resonate with cultural significance. It is as if he weaves a fabric of memory linking the past to the present. You can also see his efforts to maintain historical continuity in his new buildings by recycling discarded materials.
Conclusion
Wang Shu’s architectural work is a testament to the power of design to evoke emotion and tell stories. His work invites us to explore the intersection of tradition, nature, and modernity, providing us with thought-provoking and beautiful spaces.
In a rapidly changing world, Wang Shu’s unique style of architecture is like a beacon of hope. His architecture challenges us to rethink our relationship with the built environment, urging us to create spaces that both honor the past and embrace the future.
