A visionary ahead of his time

The architecture of the Gongwang Art Museum blends traditional Chinese elements with modern aesthetics. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Wang grew up in Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region, where his mother worked as a schoolteacher. During the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) when schools across the country shuttered, teachers and many others were forced to become farmers. As a young boy, Wang enjoyed working in the fields as it enabled him to feel a connection with the earth. He said that he also found fulfillment in physical labor.

Wang loved reading and had fortuitous access to a range of books censored by the government when his mother was transferred from the fields to become a librarian.

When he was 10, Wang moved to Xi'an of Shaanxi province where he attended lessons in tents instead of classrooms. He later came to witness how the locals would build new classrooms and was fascinated with the bamboo frameworks used in the construction process.

As Wang was passionate about art and engineering, he decided to study architecture in Southeast University because he thought the discipline was a perfect blend of the two. He described himself as a rebellious undergrad who was always ready to challenge professors. Wang even wrote a thesis criticizing modern Chinese architecture.

A keen lover of traditional Chinese art, with a particular interest in ancient gardens and landscape paintings, Wang was eager to incorporate the aesthetics and building techniques of such places in his own creations.

But he was perhaps too ahead of his time, because no one in China's architecture scene acknowledged or understood his ideas. For several years following his graduation, Wang had no commissions to work on.

Wang said that it was his wife Lu Wenyu who filed the rough edges off his personality. In 1997, the two of them founded the Amateur Architecture Studio. In his new book To Build House, Wang paid tribute to his wife, conceding that "for the first seven years of our married life, it was her who supported me".