MCLC: Wang Shu wins 2012 Pritzker prize

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Wang Shu wins 2012 Pritzker prize
***********************************************************

Source: The Guardian
(2/28/12):http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/feb/28/wang-shu-wins-
pritzker-prize

Wang Shu wins 2012 Pritzker architecture prize
First Chinese architect to win prestigious award is praised for his
'strong sense of cultural continuity and reinvigorated tradition'
By Mary Hennock 

Chinese architect Wang Shu has won the 2012 Pritzker architecture prize.
Photograph: Zhu Chenzhou/AP/The Hyatt Foundation

It has been won by the likes of Frank Gehry and Rem Koolhaas, and now Wang
Shu's name can be added to the list as the first Chinese architect to be
awarded the prestigious 2012 Pritzker prize
<http://www.pritzkerprize.com/2012/announcement>, seen as the Nobel prize
for architecture.

The decision to award him the prize acknowledges "the role that China
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/china>will play in the development of
architectural ideals", said Thomas Pritzker, chairman of the Hyatt
Foundation, which sponsors the $100,000 (£60,000) prize.

The jury praised the importance of Wang's work in a country that is
modernising and urbanising at top speed.

"As an architect, everyone dreams about the prize ... I'm very happy for
him," said his wife Lu Wenyu. They run a joint practice, Amateur
Architects <http://www.chinese-architects.com/en/amateur/en/>, founded in
1997. Wang is in the US and has declined media interviews as he is busy
with lectures.

Past Pritzker winners include American Frank Gehry and many of the big
names in European architecture who have created modern Beijing landmarks;
Rem Koolhaas, designer of CCTV's headquarters, and Swiss team Herzog and
de Meuron's Olympic Stadium.

Last year Wang was awarded the Gold Medal by France's Academy of
Architecture.

Unusually for an internationally decorated architect, Wang's five major
projects are all in China, many in his home region of Zhejiang near
Shanghai. They include three college campuses and the Ningbo History
Museum, and his work typically mixes modern design with traditional
material.

China's rapid urbanisation makes the issue of "the proper relation of
present to past Š particularly timely", said jury chairman Lord Palumbo.

In 2011, China became a majority urban country for the first time, as
farmers have migrated for work, with rapid urbanisation producing
megacities such as Chongqing (population 32 million) and vast
urban-industrial sprawls through the factory belts of the Pearl river and
Yangzte delta.

Much of this new building is mediocre, with public buildings often
emphasising giganticism and grandeur rather than style.
The jury praised Wang's work as "exemplary in its strong sense of cultural
continuity and reinvigorated tradition".

Wang reworks Chinese styles with recycled materials; 2m tiles from
demolished traditional houses were used in the China Academy of Art's
Xiangshan campus, in Hangzhou.

A library at Suzhou University's Wenzhang Campus is a cluster of low cubes
sunk half underground to reflect feng shui traditions, which oppose high
buildings that block energy between mountains and water.

Born in 1963, Wang graduated from Nanjing Institute of Technology. His
first job was to research building restoration and he worked with
craftsmen for 10 years to gain a feeling for materials. He tries to
recover what he has called the "handicraft aspect" of building design, in
contrast to "professionalised, soulless architecture, as practised today".

Wang is the first Chinese citizen to win the prize. In 1983 it went to
Chinese-American immigrant IM Pei, who designed the Louvre Pyramid.