“There are only 1.5 real architects in China” comment by Mr Shu Wang(王澍) when he was 25 years old
The 2012 Pritzker Prize winner is Shu Wang from China. As a Chinese, I am very excited, but not at all surprised, as the whole design world needs Chinese spirit in the 21st century. My idea comes after listening to a lecture from a famous landscape architect-George Hargreaves in 2011. The reason is (1) Western landscape designers have produced “landscape sculptural art” for quite a long time (2) Western landscape designers’ work is losing its history and philosophy all the time (3) Modernism has dominated the western landscape design too much and they are not able to escape from it. Therefore, Chinese cultural, art and philosophy could help western landscape designers a lot! Thank you very much to Shu Wang ( 王澍）who has become an important person who can help both the eastern and western worlds to find fresh design solutions in the 21 century.
After reading an introduction Mr Wang in Wikipedia, a sentence of his suddenly makes me really admire him. This sentence is the title: ‘There are only 1.5 real architects in China’ He bravely spoke this sentence in his Master final presentation in 1988 when he was 25 years old, which ‘helped’ him to lose his Masters degree from the Chinese University. Because the university officials thought that Shu Wang was rather too rude and really should not insult the teachers who were teaching architecture there.
Without knowing him and his work recently, only this story had enough strength to persuade me to believing that he had become a master architect 25 years ago, not when he received the 2012 Prize. Because he knew that he should tell the truth! In fact, he was right 25 years ago, not today! Well done to the young Shu Wang! You had given the Chinese architect and landscape architecture education a strong and really beautiful fist!
I like his face, which looks thoughtful, unpretentious and hard-working, and his work is inventive. I would classify his design approach as ‘Chinese Postmodernism’. He has turned away from Modernism, as Gehry and others have done, but he has turned to Chinese roots instead of western roots. This was definitely a good thing to do, but I think his work suffers from the flaws in postmodernism: it is an approach which knows more about what it rejects than about what it likes. As the prefix ‘post’ entails, it is a mainly-backward-looking approach and only to a lesser extent a forward-looking approach.
Comment by Tom Turner — February 29, 2012 @ 5:22 am
One does wonder at an architect winning the Pritzker at such a relatively early career stage. My feeling is that Shu Wang’s body of completed work is as yet insufficent to merit this award, despite its quality.
I think that the term “western landscape designers” is not at all helpful. Nor is it accurate to use this broad brush to assert that western landscape design work is continually losing its history and philosophy, or has become trapped in a corset of modernism. There are major differences between – for example – anglophone designers, French designers, Spanish designers, North European designers and Scandinavian designers. These differences extend to clients and the kind of work that they are prepared to commission. The world is still waiting for a unique Chinese contribution to contemporary landscape design issues, and I would agree that Shu Wang is in this respect a figure of hope, at least as far as architecture is concerned. One would love to see him take on a landscape commission.
Comment by Lawrence — February 29, 2012 @ 5:49 am
While I was finding this link to Shu Wang’s work, which certainly suggests he deserves to have a higher profile that is currently the situation, the surprising information that Obama also once had ambitions to be an architect came to my attention.
[ http://www.e-architect.co.uk/images/jpgs/china/wenzheng_college_library_p270212_lw1.jpg ]
From fact one, the Pritzker Prize will fortuneately raise his profile in the West, and probably also the level of architectural ambition in the East, so its all good.
From fact two, wow an advocate for good architecture in the US! Hope to be hearing much more from Obama on architecture, landscape and urban design. He may not be creative enough, but he is most probably erudite enough!
Comment by Christine — March 1, 2012 @ 5:52 am
America could certainly do with another Jefferson and, unlike the Americans, I have not given up hope in Obama.
Re Shu Wang, I think it is surprising that someone who spent a long time in the construction industry should have come to specialise in what look to me like high-style low-functionality buildings. Nor do I see his work as a solution to the Chinese urban problem, which might be summarised as ‘too many big blocks’. With regard to Modernism, it seems to be more of a continuing problem in China than in the west. So it’s all negatives from me today!
Comment by Tom Turner — March 1, 2012 @ 8:31 pm
Tom, Shu Wang’s work is not merely modernism reproduced…that is why I think it appeals to an audience beyond China.[ http://www.asianscientist.com/topnews/wang-shu-amateur-architecture-studio-2012-pritzker-prize/ ]
It would be interesting to see what Shu Wang would produce if given a large urban site or a Masterplan for China’s new cities. It is possible to understand why you say they are high-type, but why do you say they are low-function?
Comment by Christine — March 4, 2012 @ 1:34 am
I see his work as Post-modernism, not modernism, and this is a term of praise from me – if not from everyone.
I did a diagram of a sustainable city in 1995 (see Fig 8.2 http://www.gardenvisit.com/history_theory/library_online_ebooks/architecture_city_as_landscape/eco_city_plans_sustainable_cities ) and it serves pretty well for Chinese cities, except they tend very rarely have vegetated roofs. The appartments are commodious and I guess the commuting is more energy efficient than in western suburbia. But they seem to have very little functional outdoor space (except for well-made and badly-planned public open spaces). The achievement of building these cities to fast is brilliant but I think it would have been better if they had built the new cities slower and better.
Comment by Tom Turner — March 4, 2012 @ 9:01 am
Tom I believe you and Shu Wang would get on exceptionally well.
[ http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/courses/details.cgi?term=201120&course=STU-01302-00 ]
Comment by Christine — March 5, 2012 @ 5:19 am
I think so too! – but communication could be a problem.
I like to think of feng sui as a functional principle which became a symbolic design, and I fear modern practitioners of the art place more emphasis on the mystic symbolism than on the functional principle.
Comment by Tom Turner — March 5, 2012 @ 6:07 am
How interesting! According to Feng Sui principles there is an appropriate time to build a capital city! [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feng_shui ] Do you suppose they made this decision on practical or mystical symbolic criteria?
Are you aware of much research into Feng Shui?
I have for some time been fascinated by the correlation of Chinese roof design (with ‘wind’ dragons on the roof apexes and roof corners) and physics principles which dictate the points of maximum uplift.
[ http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/300703/300703,1269436921,3/stock-photo-closeup-of-roof-design-of-a-chinese-temple-49457950.jpg ]
One explanation for this feature is as follows:
“Chinese builders throughout the ages have fashioned the decorative finials at the end of their roof ridges into huge sea monsters, created to drink the rainwater falling on the roof, so that it might not drown the people within.”p573 (China, Harley Fansworth McNair 1946)
Comment by Christine — March 5, 2012 @ 6:33 am
I have read a little about feng shui but did not know about the wind dragons. Do the upturned ridges also have a functional purpose?
Comment by Tom Turner — March 5, 2012 @ 8:41 am
It is possible they are my invention, although they came into my consciousness so long ago it is not possible to be sure!
Here is a story which might explain:
“…the Surveyor General [of Hong Kong] was put down as a profound adept in Feng Shui. Why, they say, there is Government House, occupying the very best spot on the northern side of the island, screened at the back by high trees and gently shelving terraces, skirted right and left by roads with graceful curves, and the whole situation combining everything Feng Shui would prescribe, who is it possible that foreigners pretend to know nothing of Feng Shui?”
Feng Shui, Ernest J Eitel, 1873.
The upturned ridges most probably act to distribute the air flowing over the roof resisting suction.
Comment by Christine — March 6, 2012 @ 4:02 am
Interesting. I am a student at New School of Architecture and am in the landscape architecture program. Do you have any advice for me?
Comment by Sarah — May 14, 2012 @ 11:17 pm