Oberlander Prize for Kongjian Yu

Kongjian Yu has many facets. Some call him the “Olmsted of China”, in reference to Frederick Law Olmsted senior, who not only had a significant influence on landscape architecture in the United States, but is also known as the co-designer of Central Park in New York City. However, Kongjian Yu modestly dismisses this comparison. He describes himself as a simple farmer’s son. The Chinese landscape architect has now been awarded the Oberlander Prize. Read all the details here.

Born and raised in 1963 in the village of Dong Yu in Jinhua, Zhejiang province, with a population of less than 500. But his later career and his work belies this modesty. This year’s award of the prestigious Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize is further proof of his exceptional talent. His career as a globally recognized landscape architect began in 1980, when he was the only student in his district to not only pass the entrance exam at the University of Forestry, but was also admitted to the landscape gardening course thanks to his exceptionally good exam results. He graduated from here in 1987. He later added a Doctor of Design degree at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

After working in various offices and at universities, he founded his office Turenscape in 1998, which now operates worldwide and has over 500 employees. To date, Yu and his office have realized around 600 projects in more than 200 cities, mainly in China, but also in Thailand and the USA. These include the Red Ribbon Park in Hebei Province in China, where a 500-meter-long, red, bench-like structure runs through a park on the Tanghe River. Furthermore, the Benjakitti Forest Park in Bangkok, Thailand, which was inaugurated this year. There, Turenscape transformed the site of a former tobacco factory into the largest public recreational space in the Bangkok metropolitan area. In addition to his design projects, Yu has also received worldwide recognition for his scientific work. His research on ecological infrastructure and sponge cities, among other things, has also been adopted by the Chinese government as a guiding theory for nationwide campaigns to protect and restore the environment.

Yu developed his own design attitude early on. In an interview on the occasion of the Oberlander Prize, he said: “The destruction of my own paradise led me to the conviction that we need a revolution”. A core element of this revolution is the concept of “sponge cities”. Now on everyone’s lips, Yu has been researching the topic since 2003 and is a key advocate in China for a change from urban development geared towards economic development to ecologically prudent urban development. Among other things, he founded the Department of Landscape Architecture at Peking University, which has since trained more than 1,200 master’s and doctoral students. In his extensive work, he has been campaigning for more than 25 years against the deterioration of urban ecology and for the transformation and maintenance of the natural and cultural environment.

The biennial Oberlander Prize now recognizes this work with prize money of 100,000 US dollars and the opportunity to pursue high-profile activities dedicated to his work and landscape architecture in general for two years. According to the award organizers, Yu’s work has significantly elevated the role that landscape architects play in designing large-scale nature-based solutions for the benefit and enjoyment of the public. In any case, the award and his extensive body of work speak to the fact that Kongjian Yu is far more than a simple farmer’s son.

Two years ago, landscape architect Julie Bargmann won the Oberlander Prize. Read more about it here.