
Yong Chang and Fellow of the American Society of Architects, Very Architectural Founder/Lead Architect, MIT Emeritus Professor
Yuen Ching Yue Architect/Curator/Writer
Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture, Feng Guo An Dong Hai University
Wang Chin-kun, Secretary, Taiwan Residential Building Award Association
Winsing Art Place (No. 6, Lane 10, Lane 180, Section 6, Section 6, Minquan East Road, Neihu District, Taipei City)
The event is free, advance registration is required
As one of the most important architects in contemporary Chinese architecture, Zhang Yonghe, in addition to his regional and critical architectural practice, is also an architectural educator who transcends fields beyond architecture, including installations, stages, furniture, products, clothing, ornaments, and sweets, etc.
The Wen Sin Art Foundation was honored to invite him to Wen Sin Art Institute to share his thoughts and creations on architecture and to talk with Nguyen Ching Yue and Feng Guoan. The theme of the conversation comes from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , a three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play by Edward Albee, a famous American playwright. Albee believes that art should break boundaries while changing the audience's perception of things, to reflect on Zhang Yong's personal connections to the diverse creative landscape beyond architectural practice and academia.
Architect Zhang has selected several works as a reference, bringing the heart of the firm's very architectural history to the present day. These works contain an unspeakable but distinctly modernity — rustic, but not too local or westernized, not always flowing. The modernism represented by the architect Zhang combines with the characteristics of the present era, revealing in his calm the expertise of unerring molecular cognition.
In addition to practicing architecture and teaching at various schools such as MIT, Zhang Yonghe served as a judge for the Pulitzer Prize for Architecture from 2011 to 2017, contributing to the creation of the value of world architecture. To this end, he shares the transformation of the award that he has observed over the past decade: a gradual return to the basic discussion of architecture and to address social issues in different directions through architecture. Architect Zhang believes that architecture should be social, but contribution to society is through design, which is also in response to his comments in Nomenclature of Architecture: The Writings of Zhang Yonghe.
At the same time, the work is avant-garde, conceptual, yet simple. From paper-based architecture to social practice, Zhang Yong and the architects extended and applied it to a wider range of concepts. Speaking about the spirit of the time at the end of the lecture, he said that he happened to be born in this era, because of the possible unintentional resistance to the mainstream's “dislike” and thus had the present results. Taking back the lecture “Who is afraid of Zhang Yonghe?” The theme, hopefully, will sound like “Who's Afraid of Wolff?” after the lecture Like architect Zhang Yong, Albi, challenges rebelliousness, transcends boundaries, and leaves his familiar places to find a new perspective on the world.