Pritzker prize winner challenges the direction of contemporary architecture in China

Faced with the groundswell of huge new building projects in China, this year's Pritzker Prize winner Wang Shu has proposed an alternative view saying they are not the only architectural products his country has to offer. The practice he runs with his wife Lu Wenyu, is concerned with such things as memory, location, craft and identity, for "real feeling between people and construction" and the ways in which they can be recognised in the extraordinary time through which China is now passing. Read more...
Image: Ningbo History Museum designed by Weng Shu

Pritzker architecture prize winner demonstrates the proper relation of present to past

Chinese architect Wang Shu has been awarded the prestigious Pritzker prize. The decision acknowledges "the role that China will play in the development of architectural ideals", said Thomas Pritzker, chairman of the Hyatt Foundation, which sponsors the $100,000 award.

Wang's work typically mixes modern design with traditional material. He tries to recover what he has called the "handicraft aspect" of building design, in contrast to "professionalised, soulless architecture, as practised today". The jury praised his work as "exemplary in its strong sense of cultural continuity and reinvigorated tradition". China's rapid urbanisation makes the issue of "the proper relation of present to past...particularly timely," said jury chairman Lord Palumbo.
Image: Wang Shu, winner of the 2012 Pritzker architecture prize and the Ningbo History Museum, China