Chinese Architect, Wang Shu, Wins 2012

Chinese Architect, Wang Shu, Wins 2012 Pritzker Architecture Prize - February 29, 2012 Asian Scientist Magazine | Science, Technology and Medicine News Updates From Asia - http://www.asianscientist.com

Chinese Architect, Wang Shu, Wins 2012 Pritzker Architecture Prize

February 29, 2012 http://www.asianscientist.com/2012/02/topnews/wang-shu-amateur-architecture-studio-2012-pritzker- prize/

AsianScientist (Feb. 29, 2012) - Wang Shu, a 48-year-old Chinese architect, has been awarded the 2012 Pritzker Architecture Prize, known throughout the world as architecture’s highest honor.

The announcement was made on Monday by Thomas J. Pritzker, chairman of The Hyatt Foundation which sponsors the prize. The formal ceremony will take place in Beijing on May 25, 2012, where Wang will also receive a US$100,000 grant and a bronze medallion.

“The fact that an architect from China has been selected by the jury, represents a significant step in acknowledging the role that China will play in the development of architectural ideals,” said Pritzker during the annoucement, who added that there was a need for China's urbanization to be in “harmony with local needs and culture."

Founded in 1979 by the late Jay A. Prizker and his wife, Cindy, the Pritzker Architecture Prize honors annually a living architect whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision, and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture.

Wang earned his first degree in architecture at the Nanjing Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture in 1985. Three years later, he received his Masters degree at the same institute.

In 1997, Wang Shu and his wife, Lu Wenyu, founded their professional practice in Hangzhou, naming it the Amateur Architecture Studio.

By the year 2000, Wang had completed his first major project, the Library of Wenzheng College at Suzhou University. In 2004, the library received the Architecture Arts Award of China.

1 / 5 Chinese Architect, Wang Shu, Wins 2012 Pritzker Architecture Prize - February 29, 2012 Asian Scientist Magazine | Science, Technology and Medicine News Updates From Asia - http://www.asianscientist.com

His other major projects completed, all in China, include in 2005, the Ningbo Contemporary Art Museum and five scattered houses in Ningbo which received acknowledgment from the Holcim Awards for Sustainable Construction in the Asia Pacific.

In that same city, he completed the Ningbo History Museum in 2008.

In his native city of Hangzhou, Wang did the first phase of the Xiangshan Campus of the China Academy of Art in 2004, and then completed phase two of the same campus in 2007.

2 / 5 Chinese Architect, Wang Shu, Wins 2012 Pritzker Architecture Prize - February 29, 2012 Asian Scientist Magazine | Science, Technology and Medicine News Updates From Asia - http://www.asianscientist.com

That same year in Hangzhou, he built the Vertical Courtyard Apartments, consisting of six 26-story towers, which was nominated in 2008 for the German-based International High-Rise Award.

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Also finished in 2009 in Hangzhou, was the Exhibition Hall of the Imperial Street of Southern Song Dynasty. In 2006, he completed the Ceramic House in Jinhua.

Other international recognition includes the French Gold Medal from the Academy of Architecture in 2011. The year before, both he and his wife, Lu Wenyu, were awarded the German Schelling Architecture Prize.

Since 2000, Wang Shu has been the head of the Architecture Department of the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, the institution where he did research on the environment and architecture when he first graduated from school. Last year, he became the first Chinese architect to hold the position of Kenzo Tange Visiting Professor at Harvard Graduate School of Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“He calls his office Amateur Architecture Studio, but the work is that of a virtuoso in full command of the instruments of architecture - form, scale, material, space and light. The 2012 Pritzker Architecture Prize is given to Wang Shu for the exceptional nature and quality of his executed work, and also for his ongoing commitment to pursuing an uncompromising, responsible architecture arising from a sense of specific culture and place,” said the 2012 Prizker Prize jury citation.

------Source: Pritzker Architecture Prize.

4 / 5 Chinese Architect, Wang Shu, Wins 2012 Pritzker Architecture Prize - February 29, 2012 Asian Scientist Magazine | Science, Technology and Medicine News Updates From Asia - http://www.asianscientist.com

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