Minquan Wang

Architectural Designer, KPF

Post-Pro M.Arch 2018, Yale School of Architecture

B.Arch 2014, M.Arch 2016, Tsinghua University

Hi. I’m Minquan. I am an architectural designer based in NYC.

For a period I was obsessed with rationalism and abstract geometric constructs such as shown in Peter Eisenman’s works. Peter would tell you that for architects there is a disciplined way of making spaces, and by disregarding that, you could create beautiful objects but would scarcely come up with anything that qualifies as real architecture. While on principle I agree with this formalist statement, the indifference in it was something that even himself had difficulty coming to terms with.

The images on the left were on the opening page of my school portfolio: Giuseppe Terragni’s Danteum as a translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy . It brings visitors into Dante’s mythical trip through Inferno, Purgatory, and Heaven with pure geometry. This is an exemplary project showing how architecture can empower something else without giving up on its own vocabulary.

My study was a struggle between architecture's disciplinary core and external engagements. Today, it would be only bizarre and backpedaling to think that architecture should indulge in autonomy and wall itself off from larger social narratives. However, horrified by the prospect of the entire profession dissolving into technologies, sustainabilities, humanist patronizing, and political debates, I cannot help but echo Eisenman's lament that "We are still in architecture after all".

I rejoice at a cross-disciplinary architecture. But I would concur with the idea of an engaging autonomy: that architecture's cross-disciplinary engagements can only be potent to the extent that they can be spatialized. How the non-architectural agendas can be distilled into protocols of space and form, became my particular interest. That is what sent me on the bumpy journey leading to these works.