The concept of industrial architecture originates from the theory of Teece’s Profiting from Innovation （PFI theory）, which extends the analytical level of the theory from the dual relationship to the overall scope of industry, with more emphasis on the dialectical relationship between value creation and value appropriation, and also reflects the wide practice of open innovation. Industrial architecture is different from the industrial structure and the industrial labor division. It is a set of behavioral rules and cognitive frameworks for value configuration and distribution within the industry, and mainly answers the two questions of “who creates value” and “who captures value”. Cognitive legitimacy, path dependence and strategic plasticity are three major characteristics. Firms’ strategy and behavior, technological evolution, demand changes and institutional environment have an important impact on the formation and development of industrial architecture. Based on the views of Jacobides, co-specialization can be divided into two dimensions and form four combinations, which can respectively describe the “competitive-cooperation game industrial architecture” “platform ecosystem industrial architecture” “loose and separate industrial architecture” and “resource-packed industrial architecture”. For Chinese firms, to achieve a more favorable balance between value creation and value appropriation under the perspective of industrial architecture, they should fully understand and grasp China’s huge advantages and potentials of demand, technology and institution, and implement a more dynamic value creation strategy which can reshape industrial architecture, and then achieve a spiral upward cycle of “larger value creation — greater value appropriation”. This article finally builds a theoretical framework for the future research of industrial architecture, deeply discusses the theoretical basis of industrial architecture research, and further believes that “firm complementary asset management and profiting from innovation strategy under industrial architecture” “co-evolution mechanism between firms and industrial architecture” “impact of technology, demand and system on industrial architecture” and “platform strategy and ecosystem construction from the perspective of industrial architecture” are important future research directions in this field.