This image provided by the Wolf Foundation shows Chinese architect Tiantian Xu, who won this year’s prestigious Wolf Award for her work in rural China. (Wolf Foundation via AP)
JERUSALEM (AP) — Chinese architect Tiantian Xu has been awarded this year’s prestigious Wolf Prize in Architecture for her work in rural China, which the prize committee said “transformed villages throughout China economically, socially, and culturally.”
Xu studied architecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design before returning to China, starting her own firm and working on a number of public projects that have kickstarted village economies, said the Wolf Fund, which administers the prize. One of Xu’s projects include a bridge connecting two villages separated by a flood, factories for tofu and brown sugar and renovating abandoned stone quarries.
It lauded her “pioneering approach to rural development—one that contrasts with the sweeping, uniform strategies that characterized China’ s urban expansion.”
Other recipients of this year’s Wolf Prize include Pamela Björkman, an American biochemist from the California Institute of Technology, who won the prize for her groundbreaking research in the fight against infectious diseases, particularly HIV and COVID-19. Additionally, awards were presented to leading figures in agriculture, physics, and chemistry.