Using professional standing to change the status quo
The work of Amateur Architecture Studio with its focus on reconnecting to ancient techniques that are environmentally, socially, and culturally sustainable is featured at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice. The internationally acclaimed architects Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu are leveraging their standing within architecture to influence political decisions that have seen the traditional villages of China almost fully dismantled and replaced by mediocre replicas over the past twenty years.
Last updated: September 08, 2016 Venice, Italy
The work of Amateur Architecture Studio with its focus on reconnecting to ancient techniques that are environmentally, socially, and culturally sustainable is featured at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice. The internationally acclaimed architects Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu are leveraging their standing within architecture to influence political decisions that have seen the traditional villages of China almost fully dismantled and replaced by mediocre replicas over the past twenty years.
Amateur Architecture Studio accepted a commission to design the Fuyang Museum, on the condition that priority had to be given to preserving the remaining rural villages. The team undertook in-depth research on site to examine manual construction techniques that had been abandoned; even though these traditional approaches were able to deliver good quality and delicate structures that were perfectly integrated with nature. Knowledge learned from construction in rural areas is then applied to the design of the Fuyang Museum. “Right now, there is a test building on the site. At the same time, the experiment results are shared everywhere in the villages in order to preserve them,” says Wang Shu.
Wang Shu and Ly Wenyu received a LafargeHolcim Acknowledgement prize in 2005 for another project that embedded their careful focus on the accuracy of feeling more than the perfection of construction. In their series of Five scattered houses, they translated a historical house typology for a series of modern dwellings. The project in the center of the Yinzhou New Town, Ningbo District, (250km south of Shanghai), was praised by the independent LafargeHolcim Awards jury for addressing the need to establish a dialog between rural and urban environments.
Preservation is about more than mere resistance: traditional villages and old buildings have always been a valid and forceful source of knowledge. “We think Chinese villages represent the most important value in modern Chinese cities with their more natural and traditional way of living and working,” explains Wang Shu, the Pritzker prize laureate of 2012.
The work of Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu is on display at the Arsenale until November 27, 2016, as part of the 15th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice. The 5th LafargeHolcim Awards competition is open for entries until March 21, 2017 at: