Origins & Early Life

Wang Shu (Chinese: 王澍, born 4 November 1963) is a Chinese architect based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. He is the dean of the School of Architecture of the China Academy of Art. With his practice partner and wife Lu Wenyu, he founded the firm Amateur Architecture Studio. In 2012, Wang became the first Chinese citizen to win the Pritzker Prize, the world's top prize in architecture.

Pivotal Works & Achievements

The award was the subject of some controversy since the Pritzker committee did not also award Lu Wenyu, his wife and architectural partner, despite their years of collaboration. Wang Shu was born on 4 November 1963 in Ürümqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China's far west. He began to draw and paint as a child, without any formal training in art. Despite the anti-intellectual fervor of the "cultural revolution" (1966–76), his mother gave him access to the library and he read widely, from "Pushkin to Lu Xun." As a compromise between his passion of art and engineering, his parents' recommendation, Wang chose to study architecture at the School of Architecture of Southeast University in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province (previously named Nanjing Institute of...

Enduring Legacy & Impact

The historical impact and works continue to influence the modern world.

Contemporary Figures & Related Historical Timelines

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• Cho Jeong-sik — Historical peer (Born in 1963) (1963): South Korean politician and current Speaker of the National Assembly.
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• Alfred F. Young — Historical peer (Died in 2012) (2012): Pioneering American historian of the Revolution and working-class social history.
• A. R. Rahman — Historical peer (Born in 1966) (1966): Visionary Indian composer celebrated for blending global sounds with cinematic emotion.
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