With "Vital Architecture," Atelier Li Xinggang showcases selected projects from China that create spaces where nature and the built environment merge into a living whole. Here, architecture is understood as an interplay of space, context, history, and experience—a stance between idealism and reality in which the built form mediates and connects. Five spatial strategies form the foundation of a "Vital City" concept, where buildings do not stand in isolation but engage in a poetic dialogue with their surroundings. A multilayered scenography of models, sketches, images, and films makes the architectural process tangible—from research through design to use. The exhibition demonstrates how spatial knowledge translates into concrete, contemporary architectural ideas, thereby contributing to a vital built environment.

"Vital Architecture – Between Idealism and Reality" offers insight into a practice that consistently engages with the conditions of building in an evolving environment. Architecture is not understood as an autonomous object, but rather as a mediating force between nature and artifact, past and present, individual perception and collective reality. Li Xinggang's architectural thinking draws from intensive engagement with China's historic urban and landscape spaces. The vulnerability of built form in relation to nature, along with the spatial power of traditional urban structures, form the foundation for an approach that understands architecture as protective, ordering, and emotionally resonant space.

From decades of research into Chinese cities, gardens, and building practices, Li Xinggang has developed core design principles: the close relationship between structure and spatial context, the dissolution of boundaries between nature and architecture, the defining role of structural and envelope systems, the composition of spatial dramaturgy, and the pursuit of poetic spatial experience. These principles form the foundation of an architecture that is culturally grounded while remaining universally legible.

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