Ma Yansong in Madrid. “Ma Yansong: Between (global) modernity and (local) tradition”

On the evening before the the completion MAD’s most aclaimed building so far; The Absolute Towers in Canada. The Museo ICO in Madrid will exhibit the cutting-edge and spectacular work by the young Chinese architect, from October 31 until March 3, 2013. The exhibition shows 30 buildings from works as the stunning as the City&art Museum (Ordos, China), the Absolute Towers (Mississauga, Canada) and never shown before recent projects.

Finished. Hutong Bubble, Beijing 2008-2009.Courtesy of Cano Estudio.

Ma Yansong: “our work is an attitude, a posture towards architecture, towards society. Through our work we want people to be inspired by a place through local nature, time and space”

The exhibition at the Museo ICO Museum for the first time brings together a selection Ma Yansong’s works in a way that expresses his ambition to make architecture inspired by Chinese landscape painting and poetry. The exhibition is a showcase of alternatives to an urban life with organic, humanistic spaces at a time that creates increasing urban similarity around the world.

According to Menene Gras of Casa Asia “Ma Yansong has been able to take the contemporary architecture to a new dimension with the design of singular and unique buildings, product of a formalist and sculptural architecture, in line with the international architecture of the last decade, as attractive to the eye as comfortable for users.”

An architecture that reconsiders the relation between art and architecture, and upon the future of this discipline, understanding that architecture must exercise social impact taking into account local tradition and the reality of a global urbanism”, explains the exhibition’s commissioner; and she adds, “The production of spatial feelings generates for him some relational dynamics which can’t be omitted and which spread into the scope of interactions between localization, habitat and the subject who occupies those spaces built on the city’s socio-spatial organization”.

Among the projects shown in the exhibition is the City & Art Museum in Ordos, a museum for a new-town in Inner Mongolia created for a population that only a few generations ago exerted their culture as nomads. As well as Ma Yansong’s international breakthrough, the award winning ‘Absolute Towers’, two curvious towers located in a fast urbanising suburb of Toronto. A commission he landed by winning an international competition by both public and professional vote.   With this exhibition the museo ICO returns to incorporate architecture to its programme as one of its fundamental pillars to show relevant national and international discourse on the topic of making space. Along the exhibition a fully illustrated catalogue has been published by Actar and will be available worldwide.

Venue: Museo ICO, C/ Zorrilla, 3. Madrid.
Dates: October 31 2012 until March 3, 2013

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Hutong Bubble, Pekín 2008-2009.Courtesy of Cano Estudio.

Urban Forest, project (Chongqing, China), 2009. Courtesy of Cano Estudio.

Project. Superstar: A mobile China Town. 2008. Courtesy of Cano Estudio.

Superstar: A mobile China Town. 2008. Courtesy of Cano Estudio.

Fake Hills (Beihai, China). 2008-2013. Courtesy of Cano Estudio.

In progress. Fake Hills (Beihai, China). 2008-2013. Courtesy of Cano Estudio.

Finished. Absolute Towers, Mississauga, Canada. 2010-2012. Cortesía de Cano Estudio.

Finished. Absolute Towers, Mississauga, Canada. 2010-2012. Courtesy of Cano Estudio.

Finished. Ordos Museum – Ordos, 2005-2011.

Exhibition. State Fair Guggenheim. New York, USA. 2009.

Fish tank. 2004. "We treat people like fish, they need to feel the space," said Ma Yansong once. Thus in 2004 the studio designed this unique and labyrinthine tank, which in 2006 was awarded the Architecture League Young Architects.

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MA YANSONG

Beijing-born architect Ma Yansong is recognized as an important voice in a new generation of architects. Since the founding of MAD in 2004, his works in architecture and art have been widely published and exhibited. He graduated from the Beijing Institute of Civil Engineering and Architecture. Ma attended Yale University after receiving the American Institute of Architects Scholarship for Advanced Architecture Research in 2001 and holds a masters degree in Architecture from Yale. He has since taught architecture at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing.

Ma Yansong was awarded the 2006 Architecture League Young Architects Award. In 2008 he was selected as one of the twenty most influential Young Architects today by ICON magazine and Fast Company named him one of the ten most creative people in architecture in 2009. In 2010 he became the first architect from China to receive a RIBA fellowship.

“I work with emotion and with the context. When I design a building, I close my eyes and feel as if I saw a virtual world which lays half way between the city, the nature and the land. It goes from large scale to small scale. Many things travel in front of my eyes; I feel them and try to find the way to express my feelings. The language I use is the least important of it all. It does not matter whether they are straight lines, curves... I only intend for people to feel the same or to find something unexpected” says Ma Yansong. “MAD is an attitude, a posture towards architecture, towards society. Through our work we want people to be inspired by a place through local nature, time and space”, he states.

Photo © Daniel J.Allen

Architects MAD

MAD Office, Beijing, China. MAD is a Beijing-based architecture design office dedicated to creating innovative projects. The firm combines a sophisticated design philosophy with advanced technology in addressing and furthering issues in contemporary architecture and urbanity.

The firm has been the recipient of numerous awards including the 2006 Architectural League of New York's Young Architects Forum Award.

MAD's ongoing projects include the international competition-winning Absolute Tower in Toronto, Canada; The Tianjin Sinosteel International Plaza, a 320M tall tower in Tianjin, China; the Mongolian Museum in Inner Mongolia, China, and a private villa in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The firm has also won numerous international design competitions, including the 2006 Absolute Tower Competition in Toronto; the 2005 Solar Plaza Competition in Guangzhou, China, and the 2004 Shanghai National Software Outsourcing Base.

MAD's work has been published worldwide, and the office has also presented its designs in a series of exhibitions. In 2006, MAD was shown at the ‘MAD in China' exhibition in Venice during the Architecture Biennial, and the ‘MAD Under Construction' exhibition at the Tokyo Gallery in Beijing. In March of 2007, MAD will be shown at ‘MAD.exe' an exhibition at the Danish Architecture Centre in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Ma Yansong, Yosuke Hayano and Qun Dand.