Yichun Liu

Kenzo Tange Design Critic in Architecture

Contact

• [email protected]

Office Location

Gund 329

• Architecture

Yichun Liu is the founding principal of Atelier Deshaus, one of the earliest independent architectural practices established in China. Based in Shanghai, the studio has been widely recognized for its thoughtful and context-sensitive response to the rapidly evolving urban conditions of contemporary China. He is also a visiting professor at Tongji University and Southeast University, and serves on the editorial boards of The Architect and Architectural Journal.

He has been invited to lecture at Harvard University, the University of Virginia, the University of Hong Kong, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Académie d’Architecture in France, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), and other institutions. His work has been extensively published in international journals including a+u, Domus, Casabella, The Plan, Architectural Record, The Architectural Review, AD, Arquitectura Viva, and Archithese.

His representative projects—including the Long Museum West Bund, Modern Art Museum of Shanghai, Riverside Passage, and the 80,000-ton Silo Art Center—are all located on former industrial sites along the Huangpu River, where structural interventions reframe spatial memory and regenerate public life. His work has received numerous accolades, such as the AR Emerging Architecture Award, the AIA China Honor Award, the ARC ASIA Gold Prize, and the RIBA International Award for Excellence. In 2023, he received the Architecture China Award for Practice.

He has participated in over thirty major international exhibitions, including Alors, La Chine? at the Centre Pompidou (2003), Eastern Promises at the MAK in Vienna (2013), and Reuse, Renew, Recycle at MoMA (2022). His work was recently the subject of solo exhibitions at the RIBA Practice Space in London (2022) and the Aedes Architecture Forum in Berlin (2023).