Vital Architecture

Founded in 2003, Beijing-based architecture firm Atelier Li Xinggang pursues a research-based approach that connects traditional Chinese architecture with contemporary strategies. Its internationally best-known projects are the National Alpine Skiing Center and the National Sliding Center in Yangqing, both competition sites of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, the collaboration with Herzog & de Meuron on the Bird's Nest Olympic stadium in Beijing, as well as museums, campus buildings, and renovations of historic structures in China. Li Xinggang's architectural thinking draws from intensive engagement with China's historic architecture, gardens, urban, and landscape spaces. The vulnerability of the built-in relation to nature, as well as the spatial power of traditional urban structures, form the background for a position that understands architecture as protective, structuring, and emotionally influential. Vital Architecture introduces 23 of the firm's realized projects through photographs, plans, drawings, and concise texts. The selection includes a wide range of typologies as well as interior and furniture designs. Introductory essays are contributed by Li Xinggang and fellow architects and educators Sakamoto Kazunari and Wilfried Wang.

Li Xiangning ist Architekt und Mitglied des Direktoriums des International Committee of Architectural Critics CICA. Er lehrt als Professor für Geschichte, Theorie und Kritik der Architektur an der Tongji Universität in Shanghai. Li Xinggang ist Architekt und führt seit 2003 das Atelier Li Xinggang in Beijing. Er ist zudem Chefarchitekt der China Architecture Design & Research Group und lehrt als Professor an der Tianjin University School of Architecture.