A brief on one of the most renowned Chinese architects "Wang Shu", his architectural style and his building works(with drawings)

1. WANG SHU
Born 4 November
1963 (age 51)
Ürümqi, Xinjiang,
China
Nationality Chinese

2. INTRODUCTION :
• Wang Shu (Chinese: 王澍, born 4 November 1963) is a Chinese architect based
in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province.
• He is the dean of the School of Architecture of the China Academy of Art. With his
practice partner and wife Lu Wenyu, they founded the firm Amateur Architecture
Studio in 1998.
• In 2012, Wang became the first Chinese citizen to win the Pritzker Prize, the world's
top prize in architecture.
• There is some controversysince the Pritzker committee did not also award his
architecturalpartner, Lu Wenyu, despite their many years of collaborationtogether.
• He began to draw and paint as a child, without any formal training in art.
• Despite the anti-intellectual fervorof the "culturalrevolution" (1966-76), his mother
gave him access to the library and he read widely, from "Pushkin to Lu Xun.“
• As a compromise between art, his passion, and engineering, his parents'
recommendation,Wang chose to study architecture at the Nanjing Institute of
Technology (now Southeast University) in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province and received a
bachelor's degree in 1985 and a master's degree in 1988.

3. • Although Wang lived in Ürümqi and Beijing in his early life, after college he moved to
Hangzhou for the city's naturallandscapesand ancienttraditionof art.
• He worked for the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (now ChinaAcademy of Art) and in
1990 completed his first architecturalproject, a youth centre in the small city
of Haining near Hangzhou.
• Wang did not have any commissionsbetween 1990 and 1998. During that time his
wife Lu Wenyu supported the family.
• Instead, he chose to further his studies at the School of Architecture of Tongji
University in Shanghai,earning a PhD in 2000.
• In 1997, Wang and his wife Lu Wenyu, also an architect, founded the firm Amateur
Architecture Studio.
• They chose the name as a rebuke of the "professional,soulless architecture" practiced
in China,which they believehas contributed to the large-scale demolitionof many old
urban neighborhoods.
• His architecture has been described as "opening new horizons while at the same time
resonates with place and memory", experimental,and as a rare example of critical
regionalism in China.

4. CHARACTERISTICS FEATURES :
• Wang Shu is a bold new voice in contemporaryChinese architecture, offering a creative
vision far removed from the starry superstructures that have come to characterise the
country's scene.
• Wang creates modern buildingsmaking use of traditionalmaterialsand applying older
techniques.
• The Ningbo Museum is constructed of bricks salvagedfrom buildingswhich had been
demolished to facilitatenew developments.
• Wang is a keen supporter of architecturalheritage where globalisation hasstripped cities
of their special attributes.
• "In an age where the goal is to offer a distinct, individualizedstyle, Shu has shied away
from such a prerogative.Ironically,with his manner of seamlessly meshing the
contemporarywith the cultural, innovationwith tradition,Shu’s work has come to define
itself. The work is infused with fresh material juxtapositionsand an expressive quality
grounded in traditional formalproportionsand scale."
• He requires his freshman architecture students to spend a year working with their hands,
learning basic carpentry and bricklaying,and Wang also requires other teachers in the
department learn basic buildingskills.
• Because he believes "Only people who understandthe nature of materialscan make art
using the materials."

5. ARCHITECTURAL WORKS :
1. NINGBO HISTORIC MUSEUM:
Architect:
Wang Shu, Lu
Wenyu
Structural
Engineer:
Shentu
Tuanbing,
Chen
Yongbing
Year(s)of
construction:
2007
Height: 23.95m
Width: 65m
Length: 144m
Location:
Ningbo,
Zhejiang,
China

6. Introduction
• The building's architect Wang Shu is a huge asymmetricalconstruction which
can not remain indifferent to whoever observes.
• With its 144 meters long, 65 wide and 24 high, by far its forms deceive the eye
and defy logic, close the merger between front lines and traditional materials
is appreciated.
• The main screen of Ningbo Museum refers to traditional historical customs in
Ningbo area.
• Designed by architect Wang Shu, who in 2012 won the Pritzker Architecture
Prize, for his "exemplary cultural continuity and the vigor with which he has
recovered the tradition" in the words of Qian Lu, director of the museum.
• The building, in 2009, was awarded the Lu Ban, the most important of China in
Architecture Award.
• The Museum is the symbol of the culture of Ningbo. It is a comprehensive
museum with geographic, showing the history and the arts.

7. Concept
• In the design concept, the architect Wang Shu combined
hard mountain landscape with the softness of the water and
the ocean, watching the important role the East China Sea
has played in the history of Ningbo and integrating housing
characteristics of Jiangnan with tiles and bamboo
decorations.
• The appearance of the building derives not only from the
hill and valley, but also includes several minor changes of
inclination that takes visitors to associate the building with
space and scale of the traditional villages of Ningbo, 1:01.

8. Design
• The building,which begins to lean on the second floor, has the shape of a mountain,
but also a boat.
• The first refers to the existing landform in Ningbo,the second highlights the
importance of maritime trade throughout the history of the place, making the museum a
symbol of the history and culture of Ningbo.
Facade
• Museum exterior wallsare decorated in variousways, according to the requirements
of structural mechanics and taking account of 23.95 meters:
o collected millionsof tiles aroundcommon decorationin economic construction of houses in
the old daysin Ningbo,CUNADO still had not introducedthe concrete.
o other wallsare covered with cement mixed with bamboo,whose imprint is visible in the
gray wallsof the buildingand highlightingthe importance of the architect granted to
nature, "... .we seek perfection in construction, but in feelings causing .... "(Wang Shu)
o ancient local architecturaltechnique,which uses the type of layersof brick,
"Wa Pan" was also used.
o Do not stop calling attentionto the many windowsof the main facade, with rectangular
shapes and variousmeasures, placed in an apparentdisorder.

9. Main entrance
o The main entrance, with its cobbled streets, surrounded by a shallow river.
o This is a symbol of Ta Shanyanwhich was built during the Tang Dynasty as a facilityfor
water conservationand recovered by Wang Shu.
o Tuoshanyan is the first ancient culturalheritage located,symbolizes the historical
point.
• The Museum of the History of Ningbo,with its 30,000 m2, is an exhibitionin itself, its
walls, materialsand character make the visitor to delight in contemplation.
• As exhibitionspace has three main galleries, spread over three floors.
• On the ground floor there is a spaciousmain halland a smaller, two exhibition
galleries, two rooms for varioususes, offices, playground,a cafe and a little away from
the main body of the buildinga restaurant.
• On the first floor, more intimateexhibitionspaces, courtyardsand some offices are
distributed.
• At last, the third floor we find a cafe, large exhibitionhalls, some with multiple uses
and the continuationof windowsthat overlook the many courtyardslight the
building.

10. • Among its galleries include:
o History Gallery
 This gallery is the heart of the museum.
 It tells the story of the city, its evolutionis shown from the past to the present
time or geographicalopenness to the world, and through the Asian route "Martin
Silk Road".
o Regional Gallery
 Here a lot of collectionsrelated to the cultural"folklore" of the place are exposed,
like people of the area lived on the threshold of the twentieth century.
o Bamboo carving gallery
 This gallery shows the bamboo carving skills during the Ming and Qing dynasty.

11. Structure
• The main structure is made of steel and reinforced concrete, in some sections of large
prestressed concrete was used.
• The change in shape is determined by the limitationsof overhead structural beams
and columns are placed with a single discipline,optimized structural design, reducing
costs and speeding up the constructionprocess.
• The concrete formwork has been made with bamboo.
• The floor of the buildinghas been assembled in order to reduce as much as possible
the occupationof the land and to free more landscape.
Construction methods
• In the buildingitself, traditional methodsof Chinese architecture, combiningthem
with methods and latest technologies, making the museum a "statement"in itself.
• The memory of the city is in your walls, in the millionsof tiles that cover its outer skin,
the orange tiles that covered their roofs and tell their story.

12. Materials:
• In the construction of Ningbo Museum have used lots of recycled materials, along with
other key aspects to create a sustainablespace as vernacularbuildingstrategies, public
spaces, accessibility for disabled, integratedplanning,renewable buildingmaterials,
materialsenvironmentally innovative,low-cost design, using modern tools and user
participation inthe planningprocess.
Recycling
• On the outer wall were used lots of traditional bricks,tiles and recycled tiles, reflecting
the trend of buildingsustainableandfusion between ecology and culture.
• A lot of these materialscomes from the scrapping of old buildings,in response to the
phenomenonof deconstructionand massive constructionin the urbanizationprocess in
China.
• The gray conglomerate of the facade, with orange splashes, was prepared by local
artisans, creating collages invitesyou to discover places or traces of a historicalpast, like
the old hidden from the companies that made the original materialsseals.
• In an interview Shu said: ... "are not debris ... is history, time and experience. Many
people have touched these bricks "....
Air conditioning
• Combine water circulationwith renewable resources such as naturalcross ventilation,
wind towers or evaporativecooling.

19. PHOTO GALLERY

22. OTHER WORKS:
THE CERAMIC HOUSE in Jinhua City,China:

23. LIBRARY OF WENZHENG COLLEGE in Suzhou,China

24. VERTICAL COURTYARD
APARTMENTS in
Hangzhou, China

25. XIANGSHAN CAMPUS,CHINA ACADEMY OF ART,PHASE II in
Hangzhou,China

26. NINGBO TENGTOU
PAVILION, SHANGHAI
EXPO in Shanghai, China