Spirit of the Mountain: Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu's Ningbo History Museum 159 views

Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu’s Ningbo History Museum is an example of contemporary Chinese architecture that draws upon a rich but until recently neglected architectural history. This thesis makes the case that Wang and Lu do not imitate past styles but rather reinterpret and re-present important cultural themes such as the mountain and water (shan-shui), to design spaces that are spiritual and aspire to the sacred. In many ways, their work builds upon the efforts of China’s storied first generation of professional architects and architectural historians, particularly those of Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin. Liang Sicheng and Lin were among a notable group of Chinese students educated at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Architecture in the early 20th century. Their subsequent work in China produced a variety of influential texts and laid the foundation for a robust architectural profession and the study of its history. Wang and Lu’s work, specifically at Ningbo, draws on these pioneers’ work as well as China’s traditions of landscape painting, poetry, and the literati. Their approach to building is examined primarily through Martin Heidegger’s writings about thing/object and being/dwelling, and François Jullien’s concepts of propensity, efficacy, and blandness. The analytical framework seeks to present Ningbo as being a spiritual space that simultaneously exhibits aspects of the sacred in spite of being a secular building. This is accomplished by both allusions to the idea of the mountain, as well as a recognition of the unique memories and histories immanent in the bricks and tiles Wang and Lu reuse in the construction process. The writing concludes by proposing additional research questions such as how other cultures imbue their built environment with a sense of spiritualness apart from purely religious buildings, and how Wang and Lu’s work can also be appreciated as a type of “earth” or “land-art” through its references to classic Chinese landscape painting.

MARH (Master of Architectural History)

wang shu; lu wenyu; contemporary Chinese architecture; Ningbo History Museum; sacred architecture

English

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2026-05-05