The 2012 Pritzker Prize has been awarded to Wang Shu. The recipient is a principal member of Amateur Architecture Studio of Hangzhou, China, a firm he founded with his wife Lu Wenyu in 1997. Combining traditional sensibilities with modern form, Wang’s architecture emphasizes the site, the culture and the people that comprise it.

The University of Texas School of Architecture recently hosted Wang Shu in conjunction with the Chinese Architecture Lecture Series on October 14, 2011. Find his lecture in the UTSOA lecture archives. In his lecture Wang expressed his philosophy on architecture and building:

“One problem of professional architecture is, that it thinks too much of a building. A house, which is close to our simple and trivial life, is more fundamental than architecture. Before becoming an architect, I was only a literati. Architecture is part-time work to me. For one thing, humanity is more important than architecture, while simple handicraft is more important than technology.”

Image courtesy of Architectural Record