I think I know Wang Shu and his work well. A Pritzker prize winner who source local craftsmanship and material and manipulate them in a modern way. But after a trip to Hangzhou and Suzhou, I realise that I don’t actually fully understand his work.
Before modelling in the computer, Wang Shu would finalise every detail in sketch format. He would think about how one opens a door, things that would occur in the space, how one turns his body to look at the mountain in the distance, how one looks up, how one look down. He would relate his methodology to the methodology of a farmer who thinks through his hands and close contact with the physical material. He also refers himself as a philosopher and a Buddhist apart from an architect.
He drew inspiration from traditional Chinese landscape painting and Chinese garden. In traditional Chinese architecture, nature should be the focus and architecture is just a small portion of it. In Western thinking, building and landscape are separate and usually building comes first.
A good garden resembles three elements. It has a good proportion between dense and loose. It has undulating circulation. It captures interesting views at every turn. I think I get what he is talking about when I was in Suzhou’s Lion Grove Garden and Humble Administrator Garden. I faced with dense rock formations and tree canopies at the start of my joinery, and then they recedes in space as I confront with a small pavilion, the composition becomes loose. I have to turn my body numeral times to follow the cloisters and at every turn I was confronted with new view. Whether it is the view of small rock formation, mountain in the distant, or neighbouring pavilions
The very next day after I visited those traditional gardens, I was in Wang Shu’s Fuyang District Museum. I realise that I could relate those gardens to a contemporary building. The cloister was constructed to follow the traditional principle, it bends and undulate, it emphasis and create view. However, it has a modern feel to it due to the use of concrete material and contemporary geometry. There is certain playfulness to it, some walls would become bench and bench become wall.
The same principles were applied in The Chinese Academy of Art, Wa Shan Guesthouse. And unlike Western thinking, there is no primary or secondary space, they are all primary spaces, they are just different. It is a like a city that lives under a massive canopy.
Within that city, there is rammed earth that goes into the water, there is massive wooden structure that questions human scale, there is interweaving circulation that emphasis and create views. The mountains in the context is the same, the architectural language is the same, but the experience is different. You experience the space with your eyes, just like reading a montage. You cannot read everything in one go, you have to stitch together every moment that you experience. You experience the space with your body, you read the tactile quality as you move.
Last day in Hang Zhou, I visited a recent work by Wang Shu, The National archives of publication and culture. Again, another bold attempt from him. It was constructed as numerous screens made of thousands of Celadon Tile. The massive scale of the screen and wooden structure roof canopy distorts the perception of space. It became more dramatic as light seeps through the screen and forms orthogonal light and shadows on the ground.
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