National Archives of Publications and Culture

Hangzhou, China

2022

Completed in 2022 as one of China's four national repositories for cultural publications, Wenrun Ge represents Wang Shu's mature synthesis of his "critical regionalism" stance. Located adjacent to the UNESCO-listed Liangzhu Archaeological Site, the 103,100-square-meter complex comprises 13 discrete buildings organized as a "modern Song Dynasty garden," dissolving the institutional typology into a landscape of pavilions, courtyards, and artificial hills. Wang's signature material strategy—incorporating recycled bricks, roof tiles, and stone from demolished Zhejiang villages—transforms salvage into historical testimony, embedding collective memory directly into the building fabric. The design employs "shan shui" (mountain-water) spatial logic: reading rooms are positioned to frame views of distant peaks, while ceremonial Longquan porcelain screens reference Song Dynasty literati aesthetics. Unlike preservation through replication, Wang's approach achieves continuity through material reuse and spatial archetypes, creating a repository that embodies, rather than merely houses, cultural memory.