Architect Wang Shu, 2012 Pritzker Winner, in St. Louis

um I want to thank you very much for honor of giving us a lecture last night very inspiring and of course for us the timing was miraculous that we could have your lecture only two days after you receive the Pritzker Prize you started very early by stating that in China new architectural developments a 90% of traditional buildings in many places are being demolished in order to make way for new construction you in your work have tried to find a way to endeavour to counteract this by at least initially using materials from least some of these demolished buildings as a way of crafting the fabric of the new buildings and you called it a poetic of construction with recycled materials and I'm interested particularly in your notion of how the these pre-existing materials from old buildings how they would be as you say recomposed a kind of recomposition of memory how it's possible to take the materials and by using these recycled materials as you say not so much emphasized the material as the notion that it it could they contain craftsmanship a sense of time and memories of of the people who live in this place surely I call my work is eco oh response to real reality what happened what happens in the reality I see it I should to say some response I'm not just a head it is a professional architect adjusted to my work I don't care what happened just out of out of the windows yeah so another side because I have experiences in that time I do many small works renovation to the old buildings yeah it's very important to me I find usually I asked for example to have a traditional wall breaks wall tells wall I either art Eccleston who living here or readily who texts this wall you have many things here so it's not just about materials it was all about some people's they touch it there's some a memory some people they have the memory here so I think it's a mood important then just talk about material of course but material also important early in China the Aki taxi they just the joy talking and the material is that after designed and they think about oh we use this material and another material in a market like summer production so it's not my way so the third I think I like the beauty like some feeling like this they not let some modern building they just come from some not abstract concept you really my building is like this you will feel even it's the quite new building you still can find something before this exists there some existing things inside yeah this my feelings so that's the why finally I got so many touch experience works with the craftsmen together because they need a craftsman to do it there's an active story about how to do it you mentioned a moment in the museum where you were talking to someone who came to visit the museum and they said that maybe they didn't come so much to see the museum but because the fabric of the building was composed of the bricks she thought maybe she could find and touch the brick of the courtyard of her building which no longer existed which of course was very moving a very moving thing and it reminded me also of this story that had been in the national public radio interview where you had made drawings when you were very young yeah on the walls of your house in Beijing and that you went back years later and they had that people actually had saved the drawings and kept them though they may now be under threat but this this notion of touching the wall you in inscribing your experience in your case directly into the wall very very moving but that seems to still be a theme that works its way into the and but now it's something that's available to others others through the way that you use them really my work it's according to my memory yeah that story also my memory my have that very small childhood I think the Chester five years old I joined my knee joint on the Cotswolds in Beijing in a foot home scores world then I live meet him for failures later come back they fawned ever joined still they need their my men had never fought there's a grand song a grandfather grandmother it's never whose they keep this preserve it don't lacked any children to destroy they see it's a one true story so it's so keeping it here so it's a really good good feeling it's a example in the sunshine campers that also about a memory yeah well I am the childhood it's a cultural revolution times in China the schools thought the students go back to home to have a tea tree in the campus so every teacher become a farmer then they plant in the all the campers the children also general the labor it's really interesting things for me it's very happy so it's a family I design is charging campers with a platform the beauty grooves that dialogue to the mountains between this keeps lard amount farm field inside the cameras this my memory what would your advice be for for your colleagues in the West in China today don't be influenced by the summer popular times this our way in the late of 1980s they just graduated from school so I won't do some a new education it's taste in experiment but the interesting is I go into the art academy I think in China the art academy means more freedom there but interesting in China artists they don't know anything about architecture they can't understand architecture to to the end of 1990s the artists they began to understand architects so it was you can sing what is situation for the common people they the most don't know about architecture but this so that's why I finally I established the new school just after 2000 in our national art academy we won't do totally different sees know about hand joining and making material construction makes some a Chinese tradition for example calligraphy landscape joining it's a I mix this together do the summer experiment mainly my friends as artists the friends helped me they do this of course with the recognition the great recognition that comes with the Pritzker Prize you have now become the most important role model and perhaps spirit spiritual mentor to the next generation of young Chinese architects and we also have many students here at Washington University coming from China to study architecture here what what do you think would be the most important lesson I think they can draw from your career from your architecture in finding their own paths the future directions and in the in this vocation of architecture they have selected for themselves nothing is a very simple to look into their way by themselves keep independent spirits and insist longtime enough they will be successful

Channel: Washington University in St. Louis

Views: 17,559

Rating: 4.9424462 out of 5

Keywords: wustlpa, Wang Shu, Pritzker, Robert McCarter, Seng Kuan, Kemper Art Museum, architect, architecture, WUSTL, WashU, Washington University in St. Louis

Id: WM71gG8tCXo

Length: 8min 26sec (506 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 05 2012