When Xu Tiantian (徐甜甜) became the first Chinese architect to win the Wolf Prize in Arts in 2025, the global architecture community turned its gaze eastward. Her triumph, closely following Liu Jiakun's (刘家琨) 2025 Pritzker Prize win, marks a watershed moment: China's "site-specific architecture" movement is no longer a regional phenomenon but a blueprint for global architectural paradigms
Xu's transformation of a 1,500-year-old Zhejiang quarry into the ethereal Huangyan Grotto Theater (黄岩窟艺术剧场)—where visitors now traverse suspended walkways past Ming Dynasty carvings to attend avant-garde performances—epitomizes this shift. Similarly, Liu's West Village Complex in Chengdu, a labyrinthine concrete ecosystem buzzing with street food vendors, skateboarders, and pop-up galleries, reimagines urban space as a living organism rather than a static monument.
These projects defy the starchitect era's obsession with iconic silhouettes, instead prioritizing what Liu calls “architecture as social acupuncture”—a philosophy now resonating from Burkina Faso to Buenos Aires.
The Three Codes of "Genius Loci" Design
- Cultural Palimpsests, Not Copy-Paste Heritage
The duo's work transcends superficial "Chinoiserie." At Liu's Suzhou Imperial Kiln Museum, Ming Dynasty ruins emerge like fossilized dragons from cast-concrete walls. Xu's Zhejiang Shicheng Music Hall, carved into a cliffside where dynastic stonemasons once labored, uses algorithmically optimized steel frames to stabilize ancient fissures. “We're not preserving history,” Xu explains, “We're colliding with it to birth new spatial languages.”
This approach mirrors a global reckoning. In Mexico City, Tatiana Bilbao integrates pre-Hispanic adobe techniques into climate-responsive housing; in Ghana, DK Osseo-Asare's "Agbogbloshie Makerspace" transforms e-waste into modular libraries. What unites these projects? A rejection of heritage-as-aesthetic in favor of heritage-as-process.
- Social Scalpels Over Ivory Towers
Both architects treat buildings as tools for systemic change. After the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, Liu's "Recycled Brick" initiative turned rubble into insulation blocks, creating jobs while healing trauma. Xu's Songyang "Architectural Acupuncture"—a network of bamboo theaters and rammed-earth museums—boosted local tourism revenue by 240% within five years.
These strategies align with 2023 Venice Biennale curator Lesley Lokko's call for "architecture as verb"—a discipline that actively redistributes resources. Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena's half-built housing (2016 Pritzker) and Francis Kéré's community-built schools in Burkina Faso (2022 Pritzker) prove this isn't just a Chinese model but a global manifesto.
- Carbon-Negative Aesthetics
Liu's West Village Complex employs a spiral ramp inducing natural ventilation, slashing energy use by 35%. Xu's Living Bamboo Theaters grow denser with each monsoon season as new shoots integrate into the structure. Such innovations answer the UN's 2030 Sustainable Cities mandate through what critic Rowan Moore terms "ecological pragmatism"—where green tech serves poetry, not spreadsheets. This concept embodies the idea of sustainable development, which is to pursue environmental protection while also emphasizing aesthetic value and poetic expression.
This contrasts sharply with "eco-bling" projects reliant on imported solar panels. Like India's Bijoy Jain using monsoon winds for passive cooling or Kenya's Cave Bureau repurposing lava tunnels as carbon-storing galleries, Xu and Liu prove sustainability thrives when rooted in geocultural DNA.
How Eastern Philosophies Are Reshaping Design Education
Harvard GSD's 2024 studio brief—"Designing with Qi"—and ETH Zurich's new "Tectonic Alchemy" chair signal academia's scramble to decode China's architectural renaissance. At its core lies a revival of three Eastern principles:
- Wu Wei (无为) Architecture
The Daoist concept of "non-action" manifests in Xu's minimalist interventions. Her Yellow Stone Book House in Zhejiang required blasting zero new rock; existing crevices became bookshelves, natural light replacing electric bulbs. It's a far cry from Zaha Hadid's forced geometries—closer to Japanese wabi-sabi or Nordic lagom, yet distinctly Chinese in its balance of ambition and restraint.
- Ke Ju (客居) Urbanism
Translating to "guest dwelling," this Confucian ideal underpins Liu's Xiapu Art Village. By designing homes that flexibly accommodate artists, farmers, and Airbnb guests, he redefines rural architecture as a transient stage for cultural exchange—a counterpoint to Western single-function zoning.
- Feng Shui 2.0
Forget compasses and dragon lines. At Xu's Ningbo Tea Institute, drones mapped microclimates to position buildings along humidity gradients, while AI analyzed centuries of harvest data to orient courtyards. It's ancient wisdom filtered through machine learning—a hybrid that's inspiring Brazil's favela upgrades and Rotterdam's flood-resilient parks.
The Soil and the Satellite
As Xu and Liu collect their laurels, a question lingers: Can "site-specific" architecture scale without losing its soul? Detractors warn of "stereotype reinforcement"—the risk of reducing Chinese design to rammed earth and bamboo. Yet their influence already mutates across borders:
In Detroit, artists are converting abandoned factories into "urban quarries," mining rubble for community centers—a direct nod to Liu's recycled bricks.
Syrian refugees in Jordan, trained via Xu's open-source "Village Toolkit," now 3D-print clay homes using desert sand.
Even BIG's latest Dubai skyscraper features "breathing façades" inspired by Songyang's thermal-regulating walls.
As Xu told Architectural Review after her Wolf Prize win: "Our sites taught us more than any textbook. The land isn't a canvas—it's a co-author." Such humility might be the paradigm we've all been searching for. Ancient Chinese builders know: The strongest foundations grow from listening to the ground beneath your feet.
