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.