The city of Mississauga, Canada, has opened an international tender for a planned 50-storey landmark apartment building. The competition received 92 proposals from 70 countries around the world. In the end, the first prize was won by the newly founded architectural firm MAD by Ma Yansong, who was only 30 years old. This is also the first time that a Chinese architect has won the right to design through an international open competition.
In this scheme, the vertical lines used to emphasize height in traditional high-rise buildings are all gone, and the streamlined design allows the entire building to be twisted at different angles at different heights. Hazel McCallion, the mayor of Mississauga at the time, said the design turned dreams into reality. The conceptual design is also on display at Toronto City Hall, where the local ** has given the building a name as "Monroe Tower".
From September to December 2023, as the largest, most detailed and most important exhibition since the establishment of MAD, Ma Yansong: The Flowing Earth will be presented to the audience at the Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning (hereinafter referred to as the "Shenzhen Two Museums"). The exhibition presents 52 important projects in the nearly two decades since the establishment of MAD in four chapters. The "Monroe Building", which has won many honors and attention for MAD, is naturally among them. In the conceptual elaboration of "Monroe Building", Ma Yansong once expressed a vague wish, hoping to use this design to awaken the feelings of sunshine, wind and nature in the city. This instinctive and vague feeling has been continuously cemented in later projects, and has become a footnote to Ma Yansong and MAD's imagination of the future city.
Ma Yansong: Flowing Earth.
Photo: tal + white feather.
Ma Yansong: Flowing Earth.
*: MAD Architects.
I've been thinking about the future for a long time. In January this year, Ma Yansong curated the "Blueprint Beijing" section for the first Beijing Art Biennale, an exhibition that invites domestic and foreign architects to co-present Beijing as the coordinate of spatial imagination and the future as an extended timeline. "What do you imagine the future of Beijing to be?" ”
In 2006, Mad presented his vision of the future of "Beijing 2050" at the Venice Biennale: Beijing's urban center has been transformed into a forest park, and the hutongs of the future will have a different appearance from the present. Naturally, the fantasy of a square turning into a forest cannot come true. But in 2009, the first hutong bubble, "No. 32 Bubble", was realized in Beiterracotta Hutong. From the North Terracotta Hutong to the West Xinglong Street, these metal surface, bubble-shaped stainless steel devices are like alien objects, seeping into the cracks of the city's experimental base. They can be used as tea rooms, stairs or toilets, and they also quietly promote the transformation of the ancient capital in an individualized "acupuncture" way.
Hutong Bubble No. 32.
*: MAD Architects.
Ma Yansong: Flowing Earth.
Photo: tal + white feather.
The Beijing Hutong is where Ma Yansong grew up, and the courtyard house is the memory space he is most familiar with. In the courtyard, he went to the house to string the alleys, and out of the alleys was Jingshan and Beihai, and he even learned to swim in Shichahai. When he grew up, Ma Yansong tasted the artistic conception from the eight scenes of Yanjing, and saw the taste of the market from the drum tower and the silver ingot bridge. As an architect, he began to think about whether history is conservative or accumulation for an ancient capital that has undergone thousands of years of change, and what does it mean for today. Ma Yansong hopes to look critically at the future from a historical perspective, respecting the classical style, understanding the inner tradition, and creating new things in the traditional environment.
In 2019, the completed Lecheng Kindergarten will wrap the 300-year-old courtyard house, and the rooftop sports field gives people the illusion of walking on the wall of Beijing's cornices. More importantly, it is an environment to find another kind of freedom for the future of the next generation. "Beijing's old city and culture should be connected to everyone's dreams, what does Beijing's history mean to us? These glittering histories have given all of humanity food for thought. Ma Yansong saidProtecting Beijing's old city is not only about protecting old houses, but also about protecting a spiritual home. "So that we don't lose our way when we face the future. ”
Lecheng Courtyard Kindergarten.
*: MAD Architects.
Compared with Beijing, Shenzhen, which hosts this exhibition, obviously has different genes and temperament. This young city has no historical fetters and is ambitious and runs at high speed. The building has become the mark of the rapid growth of this mega city, and it is constantly updating the city's skyline. However, Ma Yansong believes that an open and free experimental field is valuable, but in the process of urban surge, it is more necessary to find a common belief in values. Because the appearance of the city is never made up of a single building, the sincerity and depth of the city cannot be created by landmark buildings alone.
In 2020, MAD released the design plan for Shenzhen Bay Cultural Plaza, covering an area of 5The 10,000-square-meter surreal landscape is expected to be completed in 2025. The whole project is composed of three parts: a roof-covered square, a landscape building and a public exhibition space, the public buildings leaning on the seaside are inspired by the original stone, and the roof green space and sunken courtyard form a three-dimensional civic park.
Shenzhen Bay Cultural Square.
*: MAD Architects.
Ma Yansong: Flowing Earth.
Photo: tal + white feather.
Ma Yansong said that the unique creativity of the city lies in forward-looking and imagination beyond reality. He hopes to find another time scale of the city through this landscape of mountains and seas. "I wanted to create a surreal atmosphere where the citizens who were relaxing and exercising here had the possibility of a dialogue with the past and the future, where time and space were juxtaposed and opened up with some weightlessness. ”
Futurism is a kind of vision, but the future is more important than freedom
"The reality of the city is superimposed on layers of history, and the fragments of the past are also the poems of the future. ”In the second chapter of the exhibition, "Process", the exhibition words are written like this.
Nineteen milestone practices make up this chapter. From the Monroe Building, which was an instant hit, to the Lecheng Courtyard Kindergarten in the hutongs, these types of practices cover functional buildings such as terminals, railway stations, and cruise centers, as well as a series of spiritual places in the city, such as libraries, art centers, and halls. Together, these 19 practices cover almost every aspect of urban life, and also piece together a vague imagination of the future city.
When "futuristic" became a popular discourse, descriptions of megastructures, cantilevers, floating, and even "curves belong to God" seemed to have become the standard pattern of "futuristic" architecture. Is the public's imagination of the future too limited? Can futurism only be connected to these established formulas?
In Ma Yansong's view, the transformation of vision is obviously a powerful and direct way of presentation of the futuristic, but when it comes to the future, he is more concerned with "freedom" - when architecture is free from many constraints such as mechanics, structure, materials, etc., can it release greater spatial vitality? And more importantly, can people feel a kind of freedom in space?
Ma Yansong: Flowing Earth.
Photo: tal + white feather.
The pursuit of freedom has always run through Ma Yansong's career path. When he was still studying at Yale, Ma Yansong's graduation project was given in "911 "World Trade Center Building, which was destroyed during the incident, was designed for redevelopment. The students came up with a variety of ideas. Some have proposed a more powerful monument, some have proposed to vacate the land for a park, and others have proposed a taller building. Ma Yansong designed a hanging garden called "Floating Island" – he did not want to strengthen the original monumental architecture, but wanted to express a world of non-competition, relaxation and freedom.
Under the rapid urbanization process and large-scale city-building effect, "freedom" is obviously not the core word of the times. Therefore, when the tide fades, the lack of freedom and the loss of focus of people in the construction of the model are particularly obvious. "Only in a relatively loose and free environment can people have different emotions, values, and interests, and creativity will be born. As an architect, Ma Yansong hopes to create such a free environment.
Floating Island New York World** Center Redevelopment Project.
*: MAD Architects.
Ma Yansong said that as passengers, everyone has a personal feeling of the magnificent, monumental railway station: in front of the door is a large square, people drag suitcases to go, up and down, sometimes up and down the elevated, the station is like a big palace, people are particularly small in it. Not only train stations, but cities are facing similar problems. Many roads in the city only consider the size and speed of cars, people cannot get close to them, and business cannot develop.
I think all of the above atmosphere is abnormal," Ma Yansong said, "so I was thinking, if I have the opportunity, I want to make this thing 'normal' first." ”
Jiaxing Railway Station was an opportunity for Ma Yansong and MAD to get. "From day one, I thought that if I were to design a train station, it would be very functional and convenient. Convenience is to be centered on human nature, not on other values. ”
Jiaxing Railway Station.
*: MAD Architects.
At the end of June 2021, when the Jiaxing Railway Station designed by MAD Architects was officially completed and opened, the "Railway Station in the Forest" was on the hot search. As China's first fully sunken railway station, Jiaxing Railway Station does not have the large square that is common in railway stations, but instead has an open skylight, lush vegetation, and a futuristic minimalist environment. On the ground, an old blue and red brick station building that was blown up by the Japanese army in 1937 has been restored at a ratio of 1:1. More than 1,000 large trees stand in the station square, turning it into an urban forest. The expanded train station is connected to the surrounding area, allowing the train station to enter the daily life of the city.
Can we create the temperature of humanity through space, can we show the relationship between historical fragments, and can we make people feel emotions? Ma Yansong said that he was fortunate that in the Jiaxing railway station project, all three wishes have come true. "A good public space makes people feel that they are not only users, but also that they resonate more spiritually. ”
Design exists to solve problems, and finding problems is the first step towards the future
Ma Yansong remembers how he first saw the Louis Kahn-designed Salk Institute for Biological Research. This lonely building is located on a cliff in the northern suburbs of San Diego, California, facing the sea to the west and the spectacular Atlantic Ocean. To get there, it's a four-hour drive and a desert ride. On the ochre-colored concrete of bricks and stones, the two groups of research buildings are symmetrical along the atrium plaza and side to the sea, like a temple. Being in the space, Ma Yansong was so excited that he was about to cry.
The Salk Institute for Biological Studies was founded in the early 1960s, but it has been in constant communication with the public throughout the ages. Ma Yansong has been here several times before and after, and has seen many people who come to visit there, some people sit on benches and watch the sea, and some people cry when they look at it.
Ma Yansong: Flowing Earth.
Photo: tal + white feather.
"The architect uses space as a medium to express his feelings about the environment, people, and time. ”It is for this reason that the third chapter of the exhibition is titled "Feeling is Reality", which in Ma Yansong's viewArchitecture is not only about walls and floors, but also about "emptiness", which exists in the atmosphere and perception it creates. No matter how iteratively digital technology evolves, architecture is still a personal sensory touch. In the past year, people's anxiety in the face of increasingly intelligent creative tools just shows the degradation of the public's thinking ability and sensibility.
What is missing is not only the ability to feel, but also the desire to discuss. Ma Yansong said that in the fields of culture and art, such as film and **, the public can more or less express their own opinions, but in the face of architectural space, they often fall into a situation where no one talks about it. People spend their days in buildings and cities, but they often stay out of it. "How are you going to live? What kind of environment will your family live in in the future? Ma Yansong feels that these should not be accepted silently, as long as you participate in them, think, communicate, and discuss, change will occur.
Ma Yansong: The Flowing Earth" theme forum.
*: MAD Architects.
Echoing the large round table full of questions written in the exhibition space, three thematic forums were held in the experimental theater of the two museums in Shenzhen in mid-October. Urban planners, architects, artists, dancers and poets sit around a large circular table. Ma Yansong said that inviting interlocutors from different fields is to put architecture in a larger cultural context and allow everyone to participate.
In the three-and-a-half-hour forum, "question" was a key word that kept coming up. The relationship and balance between man-made, artificial and natural is a problem, as is the public nature of urban architecture.
Many of the projects that MAD has worked on are confronted with real problems in cities. The Baiziwan Public Rental Housing Project explores the specific issues of open blocks, three-dimensional communities, and the right to sunlight, and also discusses the relationship between space, architecture and people. Quzhou Sports Park is confronted with the relationship between the function of the venue and the natural landscape, and also responds to the concept of "landscape city" that MAD has been emphasizing for nearly two decades.
Quzhou Stadium.
*: MAD Architects.
Ma Yansong: Flowing Earth.
Photo: tal + white feather.
The literal meaning of "Shanshui" is that there are mountains and rivers, but in traditional Chinese culture, "Shanshui" has many connotations, which is the Oriental people's understanding of the world and the expression of emotions. In Ma Yansong's view, compared with the issues of new energy, sustainability, and climate change, which have long been firmly supported by Western society with numbers and measurements, "Shanshui City" and the response with Eastern thinking may form new ideas and possibilities in the future.
The Harbin Grand Theatre is a practical product of the concept of "landscape city". At the thematic forum of the exhibition series, Yosuke Hayano, one of the partners of MAD Architects, said that when he first received the commission from the Harbin Grand Theater, MAD went to study how many people in the city would buy tickets to see the Grand Theater. The results of the survey are very few. So the question before MAD has changed: how to make the Grand Theatre part of the city?
The Grand Theater is located on the bank of the Songhua River, so MAD designed many open spaces for it, so that everyone can participate in the building, so that the Grand Theater can become a part of the urban landscape and urban environment. Yosuke Hayano said that by carrying out projects in different cities, it is not only about serving the individual buildings, but also about how to make them part of the future of the city. "For example, the museum of the future is not only an art museum, but also a part of the urban space. Architects of this day and age should change the way they designThe site is not a slice, not a featureless area, but a horizontal, continuous part of the city.
Harbin Grand Theatre.
*: MAD Architects.
Ma Yansong: Flowing Earth.
Photo: tal + white feather.
In the exhibition site of "Ma Yansong: The Flowing Earth", 52 works construct a rhapsody about the city, and each work folds the architect's thinking and criticism of the urban reality. Ma Yansong said that in China's mainstream cultural cognition, finding problems and criticizing them will always be linked to negative emotions, "but if you are a person who wants to create a better future, if you can't see the problem, then how to solve and create?" ”
In his view, it is precisely because of the existence of problems that there is a meaning in the existence of design. Design is about solving problems, and when faced with problems that cannot be solved at the moment, new approaches must be proposed. From this point of view,Design is always about the future – the future is not a specific tense, but a critique of reality.
Back to the round table at the beginning of the exhibition. Towards the end of the exhibition, the blank table is filled with a variety of answers—a scene of the architect's communication with the public is presented in a figurative form in the exhibition hall. "After watching this exhibition, has your understanding of architecture and design changed in any way? Under this question, many people wrote down their feelings: "Architecture should not only have simple living and use functions, but also have the function of cultural guidance in the urban space with a high concentration of population, and imperceptibly integrate the idea of urban culture and ecological construction into people's lives." Another question on the side: "Are high-density cities the best place for us to live?" Some viewers replied: Maybe we need more free space.