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Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhas. And now Wang Shu. The Hangzhou-based Chinese architect has been awarded the 2012 Pritzker prize for work representing “consistent and significant contributions to humanity”.

Although the award has previously been given to Guangzhou-born I.M. Pei, who has since taken US citizenship, Wang is the first Chinese architect to win the prize for work on the mainland.

Thomas Pritzker, chairman of the group who sponsors the prize, explained the importance of Wang’s win:

The fact that an architect from China has been selected by the jury, represents a significant step in acknowledging the role that China will play in the development of architectural ideals.

In addition, over the coming decades China’s success at urbanization will be important to China and to the world. This urbanization, like urbanization around the world, needs to be in harmony with local needs and culture. China’s unprecedented opportunities for urban planning and design will want to be in harmony with both its long and unique traditions of the past and with its future needs for sustainable development.

Educated in Nanjing, and later Hangzhou, Wang spent years learning about the actual craft of building. That influence can be seen in his designs, some of which are built from materials recovered from the debris left by China’s bulldozers. To see the picture book of Wang’s work, click here.

James S Russell, architecture columnist at Bloomberg, explains Wang’s importance within China:

As it hurtles into an urban future of megacities, China has obliterated centuries of urban and cultural history.

The development juggernaut leaves behind super-blocks filled with characterless towers wrapped by vast car-clogged boulevards.

A few years ago one fast-rising Chinese architect told me the country will come to see its industrialized assembly-line city-making as madness.

Wang, in a series of idiosyncratic works, has gently attempted to help Chinese realize what they are erasing.

All pictures are by Lu Wenyu or Lu Hengzhong and are provided courtesy of Amateur Architecture Studio – Wang Shu’s firm.

Related reading:
‘Utopia was a field of crops’ – FT interview with Wang Shu
Pritzker’s $100,000 Prize Won by Architect Protesting Chinese Destruction, Bloomberg