Bielefelder Kunstverein

The Bielefelder Kunstverein stages its exhibition series on architecture every two years. With ZAO/standardarchitecture, we are featuring an important representative of the Chinese architectural scene this year. The office was founded in 2001 by Zhang Ke and is meanwhile a leading design firm engaged in practices of architecture, landscape design, planning and product design. ZAO/standardarchitecture boasts a wide spectrum of realised projects, like the Novartis Campus building in Shanghai, the remodelling of the narrow Hutong tenements in Beijing and tourist buildings in Tibet and has develop into a critical protagonist among the new generation of Chinese architects, as well as into one of its most innovative. Their work forms a counterpoint to the Asian high-speed urbanism. A perceptible interest in the surrounding landscape also comes through in the use of local materials and in the social intent of the spatial interventions. Alongside the office’s participation in international exhibitions, such as the 2016 Architecture Biennale in Venice, works and essays by Zhang Ke have been extensively published in specialist journals and by publishing houses. ZAO/standardarchitecture has already received numerous national and international architectural awards, such as its most recent, the 2016 Aga Khan Award for Architecture.

ZAO/standardarchitecture was founded 2001 by Zhang Ke. The portfolio of the Chinese architecture office has a wide range of realized works including public instiutionals buildings as well as transformationsof living houses in Beijing so called Hutongs. Further projects among others are the Novartis Campus Building in Shanghai (2016), the Yarlung Tsangpo River Hostel in Tibet (2015), Narmchabarwa Visitor Center in Tibet (2012), the Yaluntzangbu Boat Terminal in Tibet (2008). Works and essays by Zhang Ke have been widely published e.g. in Casabella, Detail, Bauwelt, WA, a+u, T+A, Mark, Frame, C3, Domus, Interni, Area, Topos, Architecture Record und dem Harvard Design Magazine. In the last years the office was represented in exhibition, amongst other, in the MAK Museum Wien (AT, 2013), in the Deutschen Architektur Zentrum Berlin (GER, 2010) and the Deutsche Architekturmuseum Frankfurt (GER, 2009).

Curators: Thomas Thiel and Andreas Wannenmacher