“Great Architecture Must Be Poetry:” Zhu Pei on Architecture as a Form of Art in Louisiana Channel Interview

Zhu Pei is a Chinese architect born in 1962 in Beijing. He studied at Tsinghua University and UC Berkeley, and founded Studio Zhu Pei in 2005. The studio's experimental work and research focus on contemporary architecture, art, and cultural projects. With an artistic and exploratory approach, it investigates the relationship between the roots that anchor architecture in specific natural and cultural contexts and the innovation that drives architecture as a form of artistic revolution. In his interview with Louisiana Channel, Zhu Pei describes architecture as an artistic discipline that, like poetry, relies on openness, imagination, and the creation of new experiences. He argues that great architecture goes beyond functional problem-solving by generating a sense of wonder through its ability to "invent" and "create some new thing, new experience," positioning architectural practice as cultural and sensory exploration rather than purely technical production.