Yang Liping Performing Arts Center in Dali, Yunnan, China | © Studio Zhu-Pei

Beijing-based Zhu Pei is part of a new generation of Chinese architects offering solutions to the country’s urbanization. An upcoming exhibition in Berlin will look at the architect’s approaches through five of his cultural buildings, seen in models, plans and films as well as his striking ink drawings. The exhibition, ‘Mind Landscapes’, runs from April 1 to May 28 at Berlin’s Aedes Architectural Forum, an institution devoted to contemporary architecture.

The show will feature projects that merge local narratives and traditional forms of expression with a new visual language, says the Forum. The five buildings to be featured, all currently under construction in China, include the Yang Liping Performing Arts Center and the Museum of Contemporary Art, both in Dali, the Shijingshan Cultural Center in Beijing, the Shou County Culture and Art Center in Anhui province, and the Museum of Imperial Kiln in Jingdezhen.

While tackling urban growth, Zhu Pei’s work draws from traditional aesthetic concepts of space and structure, allowing him to create solutions that are specific to their location and region. The result, say organizers of the upcoming exhibition, are buildings with “a specific character within a contemporary architectural form.”

Zhu Pei studied architecture in Beijing and California and in 2005 founded Studio Zhu-Pei, known for its work on the Cai Guoqiang Courtyard House renovation in Beijing (2007), the OCT Design Museum in Shenzhen (2012) and, more recently, Beijing’s Minsheng Art Museum (2015).