王澍获普利兹克建筑奖
伦敦艺术大学广州招生代表处 | 2012-05-18
Wang Shu Wins 2012 Pritzker Architecture Prize
王澍获普利兹克建筑奖
2月底，王澍获得了2012年的普利兹克建筑奖，成为获得该奖的第一位中国人。普利兹克建筑奖评委会在揭晓评委的决定时称，这是“具有划时代意义的一步，标志着中国在建筑理想发展方面发挥的作用得到了世界的认可”。
First Chinese architect to win prestigious award is praised for his 'strong sense of cultural continuity and reinvigorated tradition'
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, seen as the Nobel prize for architecture.
The decision to award him the prize acknowledges "the role that 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, 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.
Wang's work ... Ningbo History Museum in China, designed by Wang Shu. Photograph: Lv Hengzhong/AP/Amateur Architecture Studio via The Hyatt Foundation
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 … 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.
（英文信息来自伦敦艺术大学）