What does Chinese mean to you?

Interview with Ma Yansong

First published in +ARCHITECT 02 (Space Publishing Co, October 2008, South Korea)

What is the meaning of Chinese to you?

I think it's a really tough question, as China is so diverse, with such a long history of culture and is under such a crazy development today. It is a huge task to look for an answer in this chaos. But I think there must be a way we can bring this huge history to our future. In China right now, however, we are still largely at the stage of literally taking from history: copying traditional forms, materials, and symbols.

I have just returned from the 11^th Venice Biennale. From the Japan Pavilion, I can tell that they already have their identity; it is super light, super thin, and super neat. The China Pavilion focused on local, Chinese materials, very rough materials like bricks and wooden bars. Yet these materials were still put together in quite a Western way. I don't think that is the future for China.

I founded MAD when I was 29, after I returned from a modern architectural education in the west. Looking back on our projects of 3 or 4 years ago, it seem there was no time to reflect on what we had learnt, so there are still some similarities to western architectural ideas. But I think we can start to see some Chinese characteristics in our work of that time. Like Hongluo Clubhouse, for instance. Here, we designed a floating roof with glazing set back from the roof edge to create the semi-indoor/outdoor space. This is a modern experience close to what you could feel in the traditional Chinese garden.

Basically, the relationship between the human and the nature is the key point of the Chinese way of looking into the world. The physical feeling of the body is actually very closely connected with the spatial experience of an ancient Chinese buildings. There is no square or box in our body, neither is there in nature, yet nature is so powerful. That makes me believe that we should follow the natural rule and to be more fluid and more flexible. That is the concept of our Absolute Towers in Toronto. Using a simple horizontal plate, we created the curved shape similar to the uniqueness of our own body. That is one element of our Chinese identity. And I believe if we keep exploring and collecting these elements, we will be able to find a so-called Chinese identity.

We exhibited a project called Superstar at the international pavilion in Venice Biennale. We were trying to make something dangerous, to represent the dynamic, ever-changing energy of China, and to inject it into Western cities. It was something equivocal, something between good and evil, between cure and poison for cities all over the world. We wanted to create something universal that could be found anywhere, but with Chinese contents inside. When you look at famous architects, you hardly find any national identity. Their work is personal, related to some art or concept from different periods. They present their own mind, not the country.

Finding the 'Chinese way' is what's important, not the material itself. When you use bamboo or wood, that does not mean you are making a building that relates to your culture. I like bamboo, but Chinese people are not pandas. We are not interested in representing traditional symbols and materials in new buildings: this is not Chinese architecture. What's important is studying the ideas behind traditional Chinese buildings and concepts. Maybe then you can find a new way.

We are on the way now to look for our identity. In the past three years, we've been running at the same speed as society around us. But I believe culture is best accumulated in a slow way. Luckily, I have a better situation to slow down now; at least I can control a few projects with a proper development process.

Is there anything you think that is really Chinese in Beijing or in your work?

I was born in Beijing and I know it very well. The beauty of Beijing City is layers, public layers, semi-public layers, and private layers. When you are a kid, you play in your own courtyard, you have this internal space with sky and trees. Once you go out of your own court, there are many other kids who can play together in public space. There, the building are not as important, as the buildings are only the façade that forms the public space. This kind of layer is the beauty of this city.

You can go into the city centre Hutongs, and although I am from Beijing, even I do not know all of them. But if you know the direction you need to go in, you will definitely reach your destination, and enjoy the experience on the way. Even in the busiest Hutongs, you can totally enjoy yourself, whilst other times you might only see a couple of people. Many of the Hutongs actually contain the best restaurants and galleries, hidden away from the main roads. Yet, although they are a draw for tourists and for developers who want to create fake history for rich people, living in these Hutongs is actually quite hard: there are no private toilets or indoor bathrooms, for instance.

In our Beijing 2050 project, our idea is to keep some of the old buildings in the Hutongs, and to provide new interventions for people who live there: private toilets, or small office space for young people moving in. In this proposal, we added some alien-looking bubbles into the urban fabric. They are all different shapes and they are like water drops, dropped into each space to connect with the older buildings.

Now we have been commissioned to carry out some of our ideas, in a courtyard renovation project close to my office, a client saw Beijing 2050 and came to us, saying 'I like this, maybe we can try it'. The client's courtyard used to contain two buildings: one an authentic, traditional building, the other fake. We suggested we could renovate the traditional building, as long as we could tear down the fake one. So we are now building a bubble where the fake building stood. In the whole Hutong area there is no real contemporary element. As such, we designed an organic shape that reflects the old buildings around it. Inside, there is a toilet and stairs that go up to the roof. When you put a new building in this position, the goal is now to overshadow what's already there. Rather, it is to show our idea that the new and the old can work together, because both create an empty space where human is at the centre. I think it's this relationship that's traditional.

This reflective bubble project is totally different from something like the National Opera House. I do not think that this building is a contemporary building, although the materials are new. The way that building deals with its surroundings is very, very western. You put the building at the centre and leave all the space around it. It's like an American Villa. You buy the land and just put the house in the centre. In contrast, the Forbidden City, next door, is a completely different idea of land use. The ancient buildings here are designed to define the space of the city, and to work, not to show off themselves.

How to save the integrity of Beijing with its city fabric?

Old Beijing city is composed of courtyard houses. The basic element, the building, is very small and repeated in dense scales. We call it 'urban fabric'. As you get closer to modernity, the scale gets bigger. In the 1950s, 10 huge, monumental buildings were built in the city, to celebrate ten years of Communism, like the National Art Museum.

Now, MAD Office has a new project called 'No-name yard', across the street from the National Art Museum. This area is very interesting. Next to our project site, there are still courtyards, but on the other sides, as well as the museum, are modern, commercial buildings: hotels and shopping malls, 30 metres tall. This area tells the history of the city in microcosm, a place where all the new buildings from different times meet, where all the new projects are trying to eat the old city, piece by piece. We are also at a transition point between small and large scale. Our site is at the centre. If we build a large scale building, like a shopping mall, those courtyards cannot live. They have to move.

Our challenge is how to extend the small scale into our site, whilst also achieving the large volume that the developers want. So we've created a building that's like a floating cloud, composed of many, many smaller pieces, but with a large volume overall. It is like a horizontal urban fabric, piled up in the air, with no clear building shape, and with all the glass set back, so you can only see the floating slabs. Thanks to this blur between indoor and outdoor, you have many covered outdoor spaces. So we are using the 'no-shape' strategy to extend the city fabric. I think that is the beauty of the old city. Nobody really drew a plan so it looks so messy, but the space is very interesting.