For the first time ever, a Chinese architect will take home “architecture’s Nobel” prize, the Pritzker. The Pritzker Architecture Prize honors a living architect whose work has produced “consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture.”
This year’s winner, Wang Shu, is from the Chinese city of Hangzhou, about 200 kilometers southwest of Shanghai. Thomas Pritzker, chairman of The Hyatt Foundation which sponsors the prize, says this is a “significant step in acknowledging the role that China will play in the development of architectural ideas.”
Pritzker says, “China’s unprecedented opportunities for urban planning and design will want to be in harmony with both its long and unique traditions of the past and with its future needs for sustainable development.”
Pritzker added that China’s rapid urbanization must be in harmony with local needs and culture. The rate of China’s urbanization is astonishing. In 1970, roughly 17 percent of China’s population (about 144 million people) lived in cities, according to Morgan Stanley. Today, it’s estimated that over 50 percent, some 622 million people, live in urban centers.
The citation naming him the winner said Wang “opens new horizons while at the same time resonates with place and memory. His buildings have the unique ability to evoke the past, without making direct references to history.”
After receiving his master’s degree, Wang spent a decade learning his craft from the ground up by working as a carpenter and builder. One way Wang combines “traditional understanding with experimental building tactics” is by using recycled materials. In 2007, he salvaged over 2 million tiles from demolished traditional houses.
Winning the Pritzker gives Wang “credibility on the world stage,” says The Globe and Mail. It also gives credibility to Chinese architecture. Zhu Tao, a University of Hong Kong architecture critic, told The Wall Street Journal that Wang’s award sends a message to young architects working in the context of explosive urban growth that “architecture is a cultural enterprise, not just a commercial enterprise, and that architects are creators of culture.”
The last part couldn’t be more true. In this globalized world where China is a powerhouse economy, modern Chinese culture is being sculpted right alongside its skyscrapers.
Take a look at some of Wang’s work.
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