According to Wang Shu, the experience generated by his architecture is analogous to the one of looking at Chinese traditional painting. Said discipline differs from Western art in that it does not seek to showcase the author’s visual sensitivity through the description of light, objects and space. Nor does it define its subjects through colour, but by a combination of dark outlines and a few thinly laid hues. The painter, furthermore, does not work from life. He is also a philosopher, a poet and a master of a wide array of other technical and humanist fields of his time. Prior to painting a site, he lives there in solitary retreat and studies the constellation of universal structures and natural forces at play and be able to, later, share that knowledge through his art. It is producing that same type of experience that lies at the heart of Wang Shu’s architecture’s motivation.

Peer Reviewed