Tea House – Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu
Designed over a decade by Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu of Amateur Architecture Studio, this secluded teahouse at Hangzhou’s Lingyin Temple embodies a quiet, meditative approach to architecture. Hidden from public view within the temple grounds, the project reflects a Buddhist sense of time and incompletion. Though “almost finished” for years, the building has settled into a refined, contemplative form that mirrors its spiritual setting.
Buddhism may teach that the universe exists in a state of perpetual incompletion. But architecturally speaking, save for a few outstanding adjustments, the teahouse has reached a compellingly final form. Tucked away from the tourists and worshippers who throng the sprawling Lingyin temple and monastery, one of China’s best-known religious sites, off the mountainous western shore of Hangzhou’s West Lake—the project occupies about 15,000 square feet in a part of the temple grounds that’s closed to the general public.
