Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu to curate the 20th Architecture Biennale
Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu have been appointed to curate the 20th International Architecture Exhibition at La Biennale di Venezia, opening May 8th and running through November 21st, 2027, in the Giardini and Arsenale. The decision, approved by La Biennale’s Board of Directors upon the recommendation of President Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, brings the founders of Amateur Architecture Studio to one of the most influential platforms in the discipline, marking a pivotal moment ahead of the exhibition’s 2027 edition.
For nearly three decades, Amateur Architecture Studio’s 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’s 2012 Pritzker Prize, the duo now returns to the Biennale with expanded responsibility.
Weng Shu and Lu Wenyu | all images © La Biennale di Venezia by ASAC- Matteo Losurdo
From vernacular repair to global recognition
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.
Amateur Architecture Studio first appeared in Venice 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 rêve in Bordeaux, and BOZAR in Brussels. In 2012, Wang Shu received the Pritzker Architecture Prize.
Amateur Architecture Studio first appeared in Venice in 2006 as part of the China Pavilion
Advocating durability, continuity, & grounded experimentation
For Buttafuoco, their curatorial leadership arrives at a moment demanding clarity and responsibility. ‘Their 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’s spaces,’ he noted.
Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu, meanwhile, frame their curatorship as a response to a wider architectural culture they describe as increasingly disconnected from reality. ‘In the current world, the rapid and multiple changes in architecture are more a phenomenon of appearance, the result of excessive conceptualization or marked commercialization,’ they state. When experimentation becomes detached from place, they warn, ‘it will lead to the death of architecture.’ Instead, the pair argue for persistence, ‘insisting on a simple and true concept and method of architecture’, as a meaningful countermeasure to crisis.
Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu have spent nearly three decades challenging dominant architectural narratives
project info:
event: 20th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia
curators: Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu (Amateur Architecture Studio)
organizer: La Biennale di Venezia | @labiennale
location: Giardini and Arsenale, Venice, Italy
dates: May 8 – November 21, 2027
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