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For nearly three decades, Amateur Architecture Studio\u2019s practice is rooted in reuse, vernacular craft, and resistance to demolition-driven development, informed by their academic work at the China Academy of Art. With past Venice appearances in 2006, 2010, and 2016 and widely recognized projects like the Ningbo Historic Museum and the Xiangshan Campus, alongside international exhibitions and Wang Shu\u2019s 2012 Pritzker Prize<\/a>, the duo now returns to the Biennale with expanded responsibility.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n From vernacular repair to global recognition<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Known for their long-standing advocacy for locality, craftsmanship, and the cultural memory embedded in everyday materials, Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu have spent nearly three decades challenging dominant architectural narratives in China and beyond. Their practice, founded in 1997 and developed in close dialogue with teaching at the China Academy of Art, rejects tabula rasa urbanization in favor of repair, reuse, and construction processes grounded in the lived realities of ordinary people. Rather than treating vernacular buildings, recycled bricks, or community labor as aesthetic flourishes, they position them as structural counterweights to a global landscape of demolition-led development.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Amateur Architecture Studio first appeared in Venice<\/a> in 2006 as part of the China Pavilion, returned in 2010 under Kazuyo Sejima, receiving a Special Mention for Decay of a Dome, and participated again in 2016 by invitation of Alejandro Aravena. Over the years, their practice has shaped widely recognized projects, including the Ningbo Historic Museum, the Xiangshan Campus of the China Academy of Art, the Renovation of Wencun Village, the National Archives of Publications and Culture in Hangzhou, Tiles Hill in Hangzhou, the Fuyang Cultural Complex, and the Museum of Ancient Animals in Baoding, among many others. Their work has been exhibited at MoMA in New York and Centre Pompidou in Paris, with dedicated solo shows at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Arc en r\u00eave in Bordeaux, and BOZAR in Brussels. In 2012, Wang Shu received the Pritzker Architecture Prize.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Advocating durability, continuity, & grounded experimentation<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n For Buttafuoco, their curatorial leadership arrives at a moment demanding clarity and responsibility. \u2018Their vision, deeply rooted in the memory of places and in the knowledge of construction processes, represents today an essential voice in the international debate on architecture and on the meaning of inhabiting the world\u2019s spaces,\u2019 he noted.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu, meanwhile, frame their curatorship as a response to a wider architectural culture they describe as increasingly disconnected from reality. \u2018In the current world, the rapid and multiple changes in architecture are more a phenomenon of appearance, the result of excessive conceptualization or marked commercialization,\u2019 they state. When experimentation becomes detached from place, they warn, \u2018it will lead to the death of architecture.\u2019 Instead, the pair argue for persistence, \u2018insisting on a simple and true concept and method of architecture\u2019, as a meaningful countermeasure to crisis.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n project info:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n event: 20th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia<\/p>\n curators: Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu (Amateur Architecture Studio)<\/p>\n organizer: La Biennale di Venezia<\/a> | @labiennale<\/a><\/p>\n location: Giardini and Arsenale, Venice, Italy<\/p>\n dates: May 8 \u2013 November 21, 2027\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"wang](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/wang-shu-lu-wenyu-venice-architecture-biennale-2027-curators-amateur-architecture-studio-designboom-.jpeg\")
Weng Shu and Lu Wenyu | all images \u00a9 La Biennale di Venezia by ASAC- Matteo Losurdo<\/p>\n![\"wang](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1764187270_760_wang-shu-lu-wenyu-venice-architecture-biennale-2027-curators-amateur-architecture-studio-designboom-.jpeg\")
Amateur Architecture Studio first appeared in Venice in 2006 as part of the China Pavilion<\/p>\n![\"wang](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1764187271_811_wang-shu-lu-wenyu-venice-architecture-biennale-2027-curators-amateur-architecture-studio-designboom-.jpeg\")
Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu have spent nearly three decades challenging dominant architectural narratives<\/p>\n