Li Hu + Huang Wenjing | OPEN, “Imagine”

As architects practicing in China today, cultural projects present great challenges and freedoms at the same time, for us to imagine the future and give form to the tangible. Through stories behind six recent cultural projects from the studio, Founding Partners of OPEN, Li Hu and Huang Wenjing, will discuss the changing role and opportunity for architects in a transformative society, and the importance of being radical yet poetic at the same time.

Li Hu and Huang Wenjing, born in 1973, are founding partners of OPEN and visiting professors at Tsinghua University and Central Academy of Fine Arts, China.

Li and Huang co-founded OPEN in New York City and established the studio’s Beijing office in 2008. Prior to OPEN, Li Hu was the partner of Steven Holl Architects, and director of Columbia University GSAPP’s Studio-X Beijing. Huang was a senior designer and associate at the New York-based firm Pei Cobb Freed and Partners.

Some major projects by OPEN include: Garden School/Beijing No.4 High School Fangshan Campus, Tsinghua Ocean Center, Tank Shanghai, UCCA Dune Art Museum, Shanghai Qingpu Pinghe International School, and Chapel of Sound. OPEN’s work has been widely recognized, with recent awards including the 2021 AR Future Project Awards, 2020 London Design Museum’s Beazley Designs of the Year Nominee, 2019 P/A Awards, 2018 AIA Education Facility Design Award of Excellence, among many others.

Li and Huang have co-authored three books about OPEN’s work, OPEN Questions (2018), Towards Openness (2018) and OPEN Reaction (2015). They have also been invited to participate in many important international exhibitions, such as the Venice Biennale 2014 and 2021, and the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial in 2015.