Landscape architect Kongjian Yu wins 2023 Oberlander Prize

Nanchang Fish Tail Park, Nanchang,Jiangxi Province, China, 2021

(Image credit: Turenscape courtesy The Cultural Landscape Foundation)

published 17 October 2023

Chinese landscape architect Kongjian Yu has been awarded the prestigious 2023 Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize. The biennial accolade, which offers a $100,000 award and two years of public engagement activities for the winner, was designed to raise awareness and celebrate excellence in its field, as well as commemorate renowned Canadian landscape architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander who died in 2021.

2023 Oberlander Prize Laureate Kongjian Yu

Kongjian Yu: 2023 Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize winner

Yu is prolific and his growing portfolio includes the seminal 'sponge cities' model and campaign, which seeks to address urban flooding, caused by climate change. His proposal was so influential, it was adopted as national policy in China in 2013. Beyond that, Yu is principal designer at the landscape architecture firm Turenscape, a studio of over 400 employees, as well as the founder and leads the Graduate School of Landscape Architecture, and the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at Peking University.

Nanchang Fish Tail Park, Nanchang,Jiangxi Province, China, 2021

The award was selected by an international seven-person jury, supported by Oberlander Prize Curator John Beardsley, and was picked out from over 300 worldwide nominations. The jury noted that Yu is a 'brilliant and prolific designer … [who] is also a force for progressive change in landscape architecture around the world.'

Benjakitti Forest Park, Bangkok, Thailand, 2022

Gary Hilderbrand, Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, recently said Yu is the 'all-time greatest spokesperson for landscape architecture in China—a nation that needs environmental rescue on a colossal scale.'

'Kongjian Yu has achieved the extraordinary,' said President and CEO of The Cultural Landscape Foundation Charles A. Birnbaum. 'He is a landscape architect whose design philosophy and concepts, which interweave nature and culture, and are committed to design excellence, have been adopted as national policy in one of the world’s largest and most populous nations – that has international implications and global impact.'

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Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).