Wang Shu & Lu Wenyu / Amateur Architecture Studio

© W.Dechau, Stuttgart

Prize winner

In the shadow of the spectacular manifestos of China’s new architecture, Amateur Architecture Studio is demanding a return to the historical tradition of Chinese architecture in its dialogue between crafts and landscape. The office is consciously working with local resources and materials and derives its poetic and atmospheric energy.
Beyond the global boom of vain icons, architecture thus returns to the point from which it has always started anew: in the use of local resources and the incorporation of local traditions. This attitude is thus a paradigm for every other region of the world. Perhaps it is a paradox that such a powerful counter position is being formulated in the realm of the very world power which is accelerating global development today.