ZHENG Shiling was born in the city of Chengdu, Sichuan Province in 1941. He graduated from the Department of Architecture from Tongji University in 1965. He obtained his PhD degree in History and Theory of architecture from Tongji University in 1993.
Zheng Shiling is one of the leading Chinese architects and theorists. From 1984 to 1986, he studied as a visiting scholar at the Faculty of Architecture, Universit脿 degli Studi di Firenze in Italy. In 1989 he was invited to teach as a George A. Miller Professor at the College of Fine and Applied Arts, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. He was promoted as a professor at Tongji University In 1993. He has been a member of the International Committee of Architecture Critics, UIA since 1994. In 1996 he was elected as the President of Shanghai Architectural Society and as the Vice President of Architectural Society of China later in the same year. He was elected to be a Membere de l'Acad茅mie d'Architecture of France in February 1998. He was elected to be a Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in November 2001. He was elected as the Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in February 2002. Over the years he has been invited to lecture at universities and forums in the U.S.A., Canada, Italy, France, Germany, Greece, Spain, Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. He has made great contributions to the urban development and the preservation of the historical architecture in Shanghai. In September 1998, he was nominated by the Shanghai Municipality Government as the Director of the Urban Space and Environment Committee, Shanghai Urban Planning Commission and a Member of the Superior Consulting Committee of Science and Technology Association.
The courses he has offered at Tongji University are architectural design and principles, history of world architecture, history of fine arts and architecture critics. He has worked as Deputy Director of the Department of Architecture, Deputy Director and Director of the School of Architecture and Urban Planning since 1986. He was the Vice President of Tongji University from 1995 to 2000. He has been a member of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Shanghai since 1998. He has become the Director of Chinese - French Centre for Architecture and Urban Studies since 2000. He became Director of Shanghai - Bacelona Centre for Architecture and Urban Studies in 2001.
His main design works include Nanpu Bridge (1991), Gezhi Middle School (1995), Zhu Qizhan Art Museum (1995), Qian Juntao Art Museum (1998), Fuxin High School (1998), Nanjing Road Pedestrian Walk, Shanghai (1998-1999), the Centre of Broadcasting and Television, Jiaxing City, Zhejiang Province (1998-1999), the National Finance Museum and Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province (2000-2001). Many of his works have won national and Shanghai architectural design prizes.
His main publications include On the Rationality of Architecture - the Value System and Symbolism of Architecture (1997), Kisho Kurokawa, the Famous Foreign Architects Library (1997), the Evolution of Shanghai Architecture in Modern Times (1999)锛宼he Architecture Criticism (2001), Tracing Back -the Excellent Architecture of Modern Times in Shanghai (2001), World Cities - Shanghai ( co-author with Alan Balfour, 2002 ). He has published more than 50 papers and theses in domestic and international academic periodicals, journals and in international conferences. He has been a chair for many important juries for national and international architecture and urban planning competitions.
His design and planning concept has expressed the integrated relationship among architecture, society and culture, and the investigation of the harmony with the nature. His design work has displayed the symbiosis of human beings and the city and the nature.
