The Ordos project is known to be a new city within the plains of Mongolia and the place where, according to a "master plan" designed by the artist Ai Weiwei in 2008, 100 detached houses, designed by different architects (of 27 countries in total) selected by the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, are sleeping waiting for the passage of the crisis.

In this context it has been completed and inaugurated by the architects office in Beijing, MAD Architects, the Museum of Art and the City, Ordos Museum, covered with a facade of polished metal, bronze color.

MAD is a Beijing studio formed by three architects: Yansong Ma, Yosuke Hayano and Qun Dand, who claims to have been inspired by the draft "Dome over Manhattan" proposed in 1960 by Buckminister Fuller.

Then, a portion of report text by the authors and a video.

"Located in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, the Art and City Museum is a crossroads for a community working to interpret its local traditions in a new urban context.

Commissioned by the Municipal Government of Ordos in 2005 after the urban master plan for a new metropolis on the plains was drawn, but not yet constructed, MAD envisioned a futuristic dome to protect the cultural history of the region and refute the reality of the rational new city outside.

The completion of the museum offers a moment of pause in a city which has seen no end to construction. In this vital space where the past and the contemporary are joined, people can meet with art and with each other, giving new spirit to this young community."

MAD  Architects.

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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.

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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

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Published on: September 27, 2011
Cite: "New Museum in Ordos by MAD" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/new-museum-ordos-mad> ISSN 1139-6415
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