Wang, 52, is dean of the School of Architecture at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. In 2012, he was the first Chinese national to receive the Pritzker Architecture Prize, often called “the Nobel Prize of architecture.”
Shortly after winning the award, he embarked on the Wen Village rescue project in the city of Fuyang, about a two-hour drive from the center of Hangzhou. He recently unveiled 24 houses he designed for the project.