Wang Shu, when it comes to this name, many people may not be familiar with it, but for engineering and engineers, Wang Shu's name is very familiar. Wang Shu is famous because he won the Pritzker Prize. After Wang Shu won the award, the Pritzker Prize became the biggest halo and protective umbrella over Wang Shu. In fact, the Pritzker Prize is a private award. An award set by a foundation owned by an American company. The manipulator behind the scenes is a family - the Pritzker family.

1. A private award - the Pritzker Prize

The Pritzker Prize (General Prize) was awarded to Wang Shu. Why was it awarded to Wang Shu? What exactly was he awarded? What? I'm curious. I really want to understand the intention of giving this award to Wang Shu. I think most people didn't understand it, but they applauded it, including some experts. I can’t help but sigh: The pool of architecture is so deep!

My understanding is: the Pritzker Prize is based on its own strategic interests, and it needs to be awarded to a Chinese. This is the need for political correctness. There are three needs: the world needs it, China needs it, and the United States needs it even more. The smartest businessmen always size up the situation and seize the opportunity to do what the world needs most. I roughly think that the purpose of the universal prize is threefold:

1. I need more people in the world to know me. Keep declaring: I am the winner of the world’s highest award for architecture. Strengthen the status of the highest academic award in architecture.

2. What should be awarded to China? To reward China's value and aesthetic awareness has begun to tilt towards the West, and finally has achieved results, it should be timely awarded and encouraged. Setting an example in China is so important.

3. What does the United States need? It needs the Chinese market, this huge market. No matter how high the global popularity of the Universal Prize is, it still needs this market of 1.4 billion people. The world rules and international standards formulated by the United States need to be injected into the land of China. If a Chinese person wins the prize, all Chinese people can know and care about the universal prize. A private award has become the world's highest award in the eyes of Chinese people. This advertisement is very cost-effective.

The next question: Who should this award be awarded to? In fact, it is not that important to whom it is awarded. One important thing is that the winner must be a person who is deviant and unique in his thoughts and actions, and who is similar to Western values ??and ideologies. Wang Shu became the person who best met this standard. So, what is so good about Wang Shu’s architecture? Most Chinese people, including architects, don’t know, understand, or understand it. As for art, if you don’t understand it if it’s profound, then it’s not elegant or advanced if you understand it.

Chinese culture has always lacked a high level of appreciation and recognition of art. The Chinese are ignorant and backward and do not understand art, let alone elegant art. Americans need to tell you what art is, what beauty is, and what value is. Americans need to provide you with enlightenment education on "advanced" aesthetic value consciousness. I will give the prize to Wang Shu. You can learn it slowly. This may be the message that the General Prize wants to convey to us most.

Whether this aesthetic enlightenment education can achieve real substantive effects is another matter. There are two pieces of information that must have entered our brains:

1. A local Chinese architect won the world's highest award - the Pritzker Architecture Prize.

2. The Pritzker Prize is the "Nobel Prize in Architecture."

A Chinese architect won the world’s highest award, and all Chinese media, large and small, including overseas Chinese media, automatically entered into a program of publicity and encouragement - set up by an American private company Advocacy strategy process. Since then, Chinese media have paid attention to and reported on the Pritzker Prize, the “Nobel Prize in Architecture”, on a large scale every year.

So, what exactly is the Pritzker Prize? Is it really equivalent to the "Nobel Prize"? The purpose of this article is to help everyone understand the purpose, significance and significance of the "Pritzker Prize" Its front and backstage, past and present life, ins and outs. Maybe we can figure out why the General Prize was awarded to Wang Shu, the intention behind it, and what it means, what impact and role it has on the development of Chinese architecture.

2. What is the Pritzker Prize?

The Pritzker Prize is actually a private award.

It is a global award for architects established under the leadership of the Hyatt Foundation, a foundation under the Hyatt Group established in 1979 by the American Pritzker family business.

The Pritzker family is a descendant of Jews who immigrated to the United States from Kiev in 1881. The first generation Nicholas Pritzker worked as a pharmacist and lawyer, and later opened a law firm. The second generation of Abram Pritzker started as a lawyer and started doing business at the age of 40. By the third generation, Jay Pritzker started running the hotel business by buying a hotel next to the airport. After that, through continuous outstanding acquisitions, it gradually established the Hyatt Group, now the world's largest hotel business empire. At the same time, the career of the Pritzker Architecture Prize was launched. The fourth generation, Thomas Pritzker, is the current leader of the family group.

So, why did they establish the Pritzker Architecture Prize, and what is the background, purpose and significance of the award?

As we all know, in the late 1970s, , the United States began to actively pursue a globalization strategy. Globalization is actually the United States using its advantages in various aspects to seek hegemony and gain benefits around the world. It controls other countries in all aspects through its dominant positions in politics, economy, science and technology, culture, finance, currency, capital, and military, and plunders other countries' resources and extracts their labor productivity through business in various industries around the world.

In the simplest terms, it is to use global hegemony to gain benefits from all aspects of the world. The Pritzker family has simultaneously begun to lay out and rapidly advance its family's global hotel business since the 1970s. (There are more than 600 top hotels in the world) As one of the global business tools for the hotel industry, the Pritzker Architecture Prize (the global architecture award) was established.

It should be said that the Pritzker family's companies have made good use of the opportunities brought by globalization. The globalization strategy pursued by the United States has indeed brought certain benefits to the world. China is also one of the beneficiaries of economic globalization. But it cannot be denied that globalization has also triggered three major global problems: the conflict of civilizations, environmental destruction and the gap between rich and poor.

The conflict of civilizations is mainly manifested in the conflict between Christian civilization and Islamic civilization. The damage to the ecological environment, whether it is global climate change or the damage to the environment and ecology of various countries, has become quite serious. There is a huge gap between the rich and the poor. The financial capital controlled by Wall Street in the United States extracts profits and plunders wealth from the world through multinational corporations, and has caused extreme uneven distribution. The gap between the rich and the poor is getting worse. The wars caused by the disparity between rich and poor have even led to worldwide turmoil, immigration, and increasingly intensified domestic and foreign conflicts around the world. Even the United States itself is seriously troubled by the refugee and immigration problem, as can be seen from President Trump's plan to spend huge sums of money to build a U.S.-Mexico border wall, which has triggered fierce partisanship.

When establishing the Pritzker Prize, I think it has two main purposes: first, commercial purpose - to allow capital to make more money from the world; second, ideological orientation - to maintain ideologically American hegemony. The two purposes are pragmatic and pragmatic. The two complement each other and support each other, becoming a complete complementary system. Therefore, 1). To win over and control the relationships and networks of architectural elites around the world, you can collect and use urban planning and design information on a global scale, grasp the dynamics of the land market, etc., so that your hotel can gain more substantial benefits around the world. 2). Capital can be used to control academic thoughts, academic tendencies and influence ideological cognition. The Pritzker Prize will be built into the world's authoritative "Nobel" architecture award, which will profoundly affect architectural academic thoughts, academic concepts, architectural aesthetic consciousness and deeper ideology.

Here, we can only praise the Pritzker family for their amazing foresight, shrewdness and wisdom.

3. Known as the “Nobel Prize”

The Pritzker Prize is known as the “Nobel Prize in Architecture.” Why does the General Prize give itself such a "laurel crown"? As we all know, the Nobel Prize has a history of more than 100 years. Because of its lofty concept, great spirit, fair review, and historic contribution to all mankind, it has enjoyed an unshakable high reputation around the world.

The Nobel Prize is divided into science prizes and humanities prizes. The science prizes are physics prizes, chemistry prizes and medicine prizes. The Humanities Prize is the Literature Prize and the Peace Prize. Later, the Economics Prize was established. The Nobel Prize has made an indelible and important contribution to the scientific development and civilization progress of mankind.

The smart "Pritzker Prize" put this highly respected "world-class honor crown" on his head. This also brings great honor and wealth to oneself.

The science award is rigorous, the review is serious, and the results are indisputable. The claim that the Pritzker Prize is “known as the Nobel Prize in architecture” should be questioned. Because it is not appropriate to call yourself a "Nobel Prize" just by following the evaluation procedures of the Nobel Prize.

We can imagine that if a painting is evaluated according to the Nobel Prize evaluation process, can it also produce a "Nobel Prize known as the painting world"? There are no absolute standards in art, and architecture Neither does art. However, the Universal Prize standardizes and conventionalizes the architectural art that should not have standards by cleverly setting the prefix "Nobel Prize". The slogan "Nobel Prize in Architecture" has been repeatedly broadcast, promoted and disseminated in various media around the world, turning it into a fact and a truth. But it is a method of using the reputation of the "Nobel Prize" to achieve the purpose of gaining fame and reputation by substituting the false for the false and the false for the real. Having a Chinese architect win the award further consolidates and expands the lofty image of the Universal Prize in the minds of hundreds of millions of people. In fact, this approach of universal prize is not convincing.

To put it simply, the Pritzker Prize expands its academic voice through awards activities and gradually forms an authoritative status. By means of agenda setting: setting up awards - using art to control academics - influencing architecture - influencing aesthetic consciousness - influencing value cognition. A private company cleverly "privatized public power" through academic means and occupied the commanding heights of "reputation" in the world's architectural academics. Some so-called well-known architects and scholars from around the world were used to build an academic hegemony model in which "I have the final say in what is good or bad." Just like using democratic elections to manipulate public opinion. In my opinion, they are importing American capitalist values, architectural concepts, and artistic aesthetics to the world through architectural award activities, thereby exerting a subtle and far-reaching influence on the world's ideologies.

I think Wang Shu won the award. Neither Wang Shu nor China are the biggest beneficiaries, but the Pritzker Prize is the biggest beneficiary. The Pritzker family's Hyatt hotel group should be a bigger beneficiary. I don’t think anyone will doubt that the Pritzker family group has a fundamental purpose: to use the power of capital to make more money.

4. Why was the award given to Wang Shu?

It was announced that Wang Shu won the 2012 Pritzker Prize. The Chinese architectural community and architects were shocked. I’m afraid everyone wants to ask: Wang Shu won the award, but can his buildings represent China’s architectural image? Can they represent China’s architectural spirit? Can his buildings be considered the best buildings in China? I think he can be recognized as representing China. There should be very few people.

After Wang Shu won the award, the Pritzker Prize became the biggest halo and protective umbrella over Wang Shu. As if they had obtained the Sword of Shang Fang, they frantically attacked China's construction achievements, construction achievements and architectural education system in the media. My "genius" building was recognized with the world's highest award. The sudden award caught Wang Shu off guard. He spoke at the forum: "I am an architect who chooses to stand on the side of the people." "Standing with the people" sounds as ironic as calling himself an amateur architect. What the people really need is massive and rapid construction to meet the housing needs of hundreds of millions of people. Instead of criticizing large-scale construction, we should engage in some weird so-called architectural art. In fact, what people hate most are lies, empty talk, clichés, and official talk.

In addition, the General Prize also has double standards in selecting winners. Taking the two award-winning Chinese architects as an example, the contents (directions) of the awards given to I.M. Pei and Wang Shu are obviously different. In terms of temperament alone, I.M. Pei’s architecture is grand, simple, and modern; while Wang Shu’s architecture is complex, ugly, and strange. The architectural images of the two men are in sharp contrast. We can only think that the general award is a double standard selection (the United States has always used double standards to deal with other countries). The United States itself needs grand, simple, and modern architecture; but what it rewards China is a complex, ugly, and strange image. Rather than rewarding contributions to architectural art, it is more in line with the concept of the Universal Prize to reward contributions to American values ??and ideologies (making one's own image better and others' images uglier).

The award of the General Prize to Wang Shu had three effects: First, it sent a wrong signal to architects and seriously misled architects about the aesthetic value of Chinese architecture; second, it guided architects towards the ugly Strange speculative design directions develop (in the name of enriching architectural creation). 3. Rapidly expand the popularity and influence of the “Universal Award” in China.

From this, it can be seen that it was Sima Zhao's intention to award the Universal Prize to Wang Shu - everyone on the street knew it.

5. Globalization and the Pritzker Prize

What is the purpose of the Pritzker Prize? What is the intention behind it? We can do an in-depth study from the perspective of globalization analyze. First of all, we can look at what is globalization? The essence of globalization, simply put, is that capital crosses national borders to make more money from around the world.

Marx, a great Jew, had long seen clearly the bloody nature of capital. As early as 1848, the "Communist Manifesto" issued a great call to "Workers of the world, unite!" But unfortunately, globalization has failed to unite proletarians all over the world, but has united capitalists all over the world.

Capitalists allow capital to cross national borders and go all over the world to extract the surplus value of people all over the world. The proletarians of the world have not united, but it seems that the capitalists have. This is probably something Marx did not expect. Yes, the proletarians are often scattered, but the smart capitalists are always united and have the same goal.

Capital’s profit extraction and profit competition itself have not changed, but the methods have undergone tremendous changes. From the past competition for interests and intensification of conflicts that would not hesitate to trigger wars, to today's globalized transnational finance, transnational capital, and transnational corporations go global to gain benefits.

The painful lessons of the two world wars have also made capital smarter and wiser. Capital needs to use more clever, more tactful, softer and more acceptable methods to make them work more efficiently. For example, work through technology, finance, currency, trade, and globalization.

The Jewish elites in the United States are the group of people with the most global vision and the best understanding of the significance and role of globalization. As former US Secretary of State Kissinger famously said: "Whoever controls oil controls all countries; whoever controls food controls humanity; whoever controls the right to issue currency controls the world." Look, Kissinger has clearly explained the purpose, meaning, methods, means and direction of globalization. It seems that Americans’ confidence in the capitalist system is well-founded—the greedy nature of capital has not changed at all. It’s just that the method has been changed to a global one.

The Pritzker Prize is a global award. Because their hotel industry has already spread all over the world.

6. Rules, Judges, Candidates

“The Pritzker Prize international jury refers to the selection method of the Nobel Prize and consists of world-renowned authoritative architects, writers, artists, and scholars. , critics, and international business celebrities such as the former IBM Chairman are organized into a jury. "This jury seems to include authoritative architects, writers, and scholars, but the most authoritative ones are probably international celebrities like "the former IBM Chairman." Business celebrities". What can you say as a person who spends my money to be a judge? It is not difficult to imagine that businessmen control the results of the general awards.

According to the rules, a winner is selected every year from more than 500 nominees from more than 40 countries around the world. You can imagine this scene. Is this a selection? No! This is clearly a global propaganda "fool"! It's really like a small presidential campaign show. It’s a complete deception!

We can clearly see its “fooling” logic just from the analysis of award-winning Japanese architects. For example, compared with the previous Japanese winners, this year’s General Prize winner, Arata Isozaki, has a higher theoretical level, articles and high-quality built works all over the world, whether it is supporting young architects or promoting globalization in various countries. Architects' international exchanges have undisputed outstanding contributions. It can be said that there is no comparison with other Japanese architects who have won previous awards.

I think all conscientious architects around the world will feel the same way. This year's Universal Prize was awarded to Arata Isozaki: It can be said to be a very ridiculous incident! The sentiments from all over the world that "the Universal Prize came thirty years late" explains everything.

So, why do they do this? Two words: "fool"! The purpose is to make it a topic that is hotly discussed all over the world.

The rules also state that "no members of the Pritzker family or outside observers will be present" at the review meeting. The implication is to "listen behind the curtain and listen to politics" and control the entire process. Establishing good rules and selecting good judges will determine the outcome. Controlling things off the field is enough. Setting up an "outside observer" says it all. Its purpose was originally to convey an impression to the outside world: the review of the Universal Prize is very democratic, very fair, very impartial, and there is no trickery. This explanation actually makes people feel like "there is no three hundred taels of silver here". You know the fact!

In addition, the general prize's attention to detail also reflects their unusual shrewdness. Among the rules: the awards will be presented in a famous local building. He is indeed an elf who understands the power of architecture. A deep understanding of the power of space and environment may seem like a small request, but it will have a huge impact. In China, the Great Hall of the People is chosen to award awards, and the prime minister and government officials will attend the meeting. One can imagine the intensity of this publicity.

7. How capital controls academia

As mentioned earlier, the Pritzker Prize is a private award. An award set by a foundation owned by an American company. The manipulator behind the scenes is a family - the Pritzker family group. The Pritzker family is a Jewish family that immigrated to the United States from Kiev in 1881. It started operating the hotel industry by purchasing a hotel and quickly developed into a world-class international hotel group. It can be said that it is a new type of capital player that is gradually emerging through hotel management.

The Pritzker Architecture Prize was established in 1979. It has gone through a development path in which "capital controls academics and serves capital: the capital cycle of "capital - architectural awards - hotel management". One of the most important means is to control the world's architectural art through the operation of capital. and the right to speak in academic evaluation. Let architectural art and architectural scholarship become a means to control the world's architectural elite. Use the power of capital to organize an "authoritative" academic evaluation group and turn the "public right" of academics into "private control." Tools.

Use "evaluation - awarding - control" to control the standards of architectural art and architectural academic evaluation, and control the entire architectural industry and architectural field by occupying the academic commanding heights and through "awarding." - Awards - Propaganda" political means to control the public's perception of aesthetics, and gradually achieve the purpose of controlling architects' aesthetic cognitive tendencies and ideologies.

From architectural aesthetics to the impact on values ??and ideology. In my opinion, it even reaches the point of "calling a deer a horse". Wang Shu's award fully illustrates this point.

8. Conclusion

I have no personal grudges with Wang Shu, and I have no interest in the Pritzker Prize. The critical articles are merely expressions of academic opinions. The purpose of this article is just to try to express my personal understanding of the Pritzker Prize from different levels and angles and to answer people’s questions about “what kind of prize is the Universal Prize?”

What is architecture? Cobb said: Architecture is a machine for living. This is an architectural thinker's understanding and definition of architecture at a certain stage and in a certain era. Because it was an era of industrial revolution and an era of machines. Different eras have different definitions of architecture. In our time, architecture seems to have become a tool of capital. The Pritzker Prize demonstrates to us the entire process of capital controlling architecture.

So, what is the contribution of the Pritzker Prize to the field of architecture? I think it should be that people pay more attention to architecture. I understand the complexity and contradiction of architecture. Architecture has many aspects, and is even as complex and diverse as human nature. In addition to functionality, space, and regionality, people may start to think about the ideological, cultural, economic, ecological, and relationship with the world (relationships related to human destiny) of architecture. Think about the advantages and disadvantages of ideology, the realism of culture, and the ecological perspective.

So, what benefits does the Pudong Prize benefit you, and what is its impact on the world? I think that by controlling the academic discourse power of architecture, the Pudong Prize not only has a long-term and huge impact on its own hotel business. In addition to interests, the most important thing is that it has had an important and far-reaching ideological, cultural and practical impact on the value consciousness of contemporary world architecture. It has a "big difference" effect on real-world architecture.

What is the impact on the Chinese architectural community? First, the realistic impact. I am worried that thousands of architects will copy Wang Shu's style, resulting in an endless stream of strange buildings, and there is no weirdest, only weirder architectural style; secondly, it will cause confusion and influence on the academic theory of architecture. Academic confusion and ideological confusion are the most profound, fatal, and fundamental confusions, and their long-term harm is self-evident. Again, it has an impact on architectural education. There will be a large number of architecture students in China who will follow this "China Universal Prize winner" as an example. There is a Chinese saying, "The power of role models is infinite." It laid the architectural aesthetic cognitive orientation of "taking ugliness as beauty and strangeness in the world" and built a cognitive foundation for educational thought. The bad influence of ideological concepts will definitely have an extensive and far-reaching misleading influence on the lifelong creation of the majority of young architects.

So, what did Wang Shu do right? To put it bluntly, only focusing on Wang Shu and criticizing him actually made him a bit unjust. He may be regarded as "laying the gun" (although he is very happy) . The period when Wang Shu entered architecture studies was the period when the city was just opening up to the outside world after the ten-year Cultural Revolution, which was closed to civil strife. In the 1980s, there was a trend of academic thought that violently absorbed Western ideas, which was bound to completely Westernize China. Too many young people, including him, are deeply attracted and influenced by Western ideas. Against this background, Wang Shu honestly pursued his own individual style and entered his own architectural world. His personality, publicity, whimsy, madness, ego, weirdness, and connection with the special period of history gave birth to Wang Shu's "strange, weird, ugly, ugly, and empty" architecture that is neither foreign nor foreign but foreign at the same time. image.

Finally, to borrow the words of a psychologist, as social animals, our correct attitude towards life should be: critical but objective and fair, curious but not deceived, open and not manipulated.