China is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, which means that there's lots of building going on there. Here in the West, we mostly hear about the glitzy projects done by big international firms to attract interest and investment. (Think Zaha Hadid's Galaxy SOHO or OMA's CCTV Headquarters.) Even the two main venues of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing—the National Stadium and the National Aquatics Center—were designed by foreigners: the Swiss Herzog & de Meuron and the Australian PTW Architects, respectively. But China has its own architects, too, and they're doing really interesting, if more obscure, work. There's Studio Pei-Zhu, a young firm whose elegant, sinuous buildings aim to connect contemporary urban China to its roots, and the grittier Urbanus, known for its innovative, noninvasive renovations and a belief in the modernist principals of design. And of course there's Wang Shu, who runs Amateur Architecture Studio with his wife Lu Wenyu, and whose environmentally and culturally sensitive works have earned him not only the first Pritzker Prize awarded to a Chinese architect, but also a ranking in Time Magazine's Most Influential People list. Urbanus's Nanshan Wedding Center in Shenzhen. Photo: Meng Yan & ...
China is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, which means that there's lots of building going on there. Here in the West, we mostly hear about the glitzy projects done by big international firms to attract interest and investment. (Think Zaha Hadid's Galaxy SOHO or OMA's CCTV Headquarters.) Even the two main venues of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing—the National Stadium and the National Aquatics Center—were designed by foreigners: the Swiss Herzog & de Meuron and the Australian PTW Architects, respectively. But China has its own architects, too, and they're doing really interesting, if more obscure, work. There's Studio Pei-Zhu, a young firm whose elegant, sinuous buildings aim to connect contemporary urban China to its roots, and the grittier Urbanus, known for its innovative, noninvasive renovations and a belief in the modernist principals of design. And of course there's Wang Shu, who runs Amateur Architecture Studio with his wife Lu Wenyu, and whose environmentally and culturally sensitive works have earned him not only the first Pritzker Prize awarded to a Chinese architect, but also a ranking in Time Magazine's Most Influential People list. Urbanus's Nanshan Wedding Center in Shenzhen. Photo: Meng Yan & ...