China Vanke wins Architectural Record “Best Client” Award

Hiring talented architects, emphasizing innovative design, and delivering quality housing helped China Vanke earn this year’s award as Best Client.

By Frederik Balfour with Alex Pasternack

China Vanke chairman Wang Shi doesn’t fit the stereotype of the wheeling-and-dealing Chinese property developer. Soft spoken, deferential, and exceedingly fit for 57 years old—he has climbed the highest peaks on all seven continents—Wang comes across as a polymath who sprinkles his conversation with references to American psychologist Abraham Maslow’s “hierarchy of human needs,” Spanish architect Antonio Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona, and the latest green building technologies. With short, cropped hair and a square jaw that lends him a strong resemblance to film director Zhang Yimou, Wang has appeared in television commercials for companies such as Volkswagen, Ping An Insurance, and Motorola, earning millions of dollars that he has given to charity.

He’s also a favorite among China’s architects, a factor that helped his company earn this year’s Best Client award. “I think we are very lucky to work with them,” says Li Hu, partner at Steven Holl Architects, which designed Vanke’s new headquarters under construction in Shenzhen. When Li and Holl presented their “horizontal skyscraper “design with a single building floating over public space, Wang understood the concept immediately, likening it to an American research station built on stilts that he saw on a visit to the South Pole.

Full article in the April 2008 issue.

Tags: architect, best client, vanke, wang shi