MAD has offices in Beijing, Los Angeles and New York (left). It is now led by Yansong, Dang Qun and Yosuke Hayano; Chaoyang Park Plaza in Beijing features towers shaped like mountains (below)
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hinese architect Ma Yansong is the rising architectural star at the helm of MAD, the Beijing studio building a reputation for their futuristic sculptural buildings and boundary-pushing ideas. Ma founded MAD in 2004, but only 12 years on, the practice have already developed a wildly diverse and eye-catching portfolio of built and unbuilt work, and opened offices in Los Angeles and New York. Generally accepted ideas about what is architecturally possible are gleefully cast aside; in MAD’s world, art museums are imagined as vast water-borne islands, tree-topped forest towers can stretch far into the sky and high-density high rises are sculpted to climb and fall like rolling hills. But if there’s madness at MAD, there’s certainly method in it. In fact, the studio are on a roll. Last December they finished the acclaimed Harbin Opera House, their largest completed project to date. Since then they have won a competition to design their first European project – a curving, asymmetrical residential scheme in Paris – and exhibited at the 2016 Milan Design Week. They’ve completed a kindergarten in Japan, started work on a design centre for one of China’s biggest fashion companies, and enjoyed the continuing support of Star Wars creator George Lucas – who is trying to build their sci-fi-tinged vision for his Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.
The Urban Forest tower in Chongqing in south west China features gardens at each level. It is designed to bring nature and open space into a dense urban landscape
CLAD mag 2016 ISSUE 3
Creating form Despite being hotly tipped as an architectural superstar in the making, Ma’s success hasn’t gone to his head. When we meet he’s polite, thoughtful and generous with his time; a figure of composed cool in his open white shirt and designer sunglasses. Nothing much seems to faze him. We’ve scheduled to meet after a panel discussion where he’s due to speak, but a mishap with his taxi means he arrives late to the event. He seamlessly and articulately joins the debate halfway through, injecting some much needed interest into what has been a fairly dry affair. Later, after our interview, he’s asked by a potential client to present a design on the spot, which he promptly sketches out on a nearby napkin. So what guides Ma’s design journey as a project evolves from napkin to drawing board to a building of bricks and mortar (and, in MAD’s case, a hundred materials besides)? “Architecture is creating an experience, and I think the experience is like a narrative,” he explains. “That is something very fundamental to this profession. It can channel your hate, your love and all the other universal human emotions.
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