Wang, 52, is dean of the School of Architecture at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. In 2012, he was the first Chinese national to receive the Pritzker Architecture Prize, often called “the Nobel Prize of architecture.”

Shortly after winning the award, he embarked on the Wen Village rescue project in the city of Fuyang, about a two-hour drive from the center of Hangzhou. He recently unveiled 24 houses he designed for the project.

“This is my attempt to experiment with a different kind of urbanization for Chinese villages,” he told Shanghai Daily in a recent interview in Fuyang. “I am exploring possibilities to rescue these villages, and I still don’t know if I am succeeding.”

Each of the 24 three-story houses, arrayed in two rows, is distinct from one another. They showcase Wang’s signature aesthetic style, using recycled materials in designs inspired from traditional Chinese landscape paintings. The homes integrate with their natural surroundings.

The houses were constructed on empty land at the end of the old section of the village. They stand in stark contrast to communities of American-style country homes in a new area across town. ... “Of course, I was well aware of the challenges before I undertook this project,” Wang explains. “Any normal, sane architect wouldn’t take a project like this, where you have to deal with multiple property owners instead of one. And Chinese villagers are the most difficult owners you would ever run into. You can neither accept nor ignore all their demands or complaints. One needs some social skills to handle it all.”

Wang, obviously, is not considered a “normal” architect. The Pritzker jury, in announcing the award, cited his role in trying to harmonize the traditions of the past with the future needs of sustainable urban development.

Wang has long had the reputation of something of a rebel in his profession. His sharp criticism of what he calls “soulless” buildings across China is as well known as his masterpiece designs.

He refers to himself as a full-time intellectual and only an amateur architect. To press the point, the studio he co-founded with his architect wife Lu Wenyu is named Amateur Architecture Studio.

“I don’t want to have to depend on taking projects to survive, but rather, I want to work on projects that charm me and maintain my passion for architecture,” he says. “Every house I build is one I would like to live in.” ... “It was quite sad,” he says of the field research. “Most of these villages we visited were beyond saving. Old houses had already been demolished, replaced by huge new ones that remained empty. Wen Village is still salvageable because the old town is pretty much intact, with the new houses on the other side of town. There were still traces of old-style Chinese villages there. It had not been completely turned into all American-style country houses yet.”