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" I don't use tools to create things, but I use them to realize things. "
Ma Yansong
Tools
Use
Things
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" Ultimately, the artistic part of architecture has always interested me. "
Ma Yansong
Interested
Me
Always
" Architects like to work in a problematic environment. "
Ma Yansong
Work
Architects
Environment
" We need to enter a new era to make nature and humans more emotionally connected in modern cities. "
Ma Yansong
New
Nature
Need
" What if we treat the high-rise like a mountain, or we have gardens in the sky, or waterfalls? I think that's the most challenging thing I want to try in my architecture. "
Ma Yansong
Try
Architecture
Mountain
" Chaoyang Park Plaza is about how to carry the traditional culture into a new format in modern architecture. Instead of building a boundary between the city and the park, I tried to design this building to emerge from the natural landscape. "
Ma Yansong
City
Architecture
Culture
" Tiananmen Square is a sensitive topic because many things happened there. The idea of turning the plaza into a forest makes many people feel uncomfortable. "
Ma Yansong
Forest
People
Uncomfortable
" My first impression of Beverly Hills was that it had a landscape of small houses built by famous architects, so I didn't want to make a big block or sculpture here; I wanted to make a community rooted to the place. "
Ma Yansong
Famous
Small
Community
" China is a place where you can experience two very contrasting things coexisting. First, the rich, cultural history of the country - and, second, rapid urbanization. "
Ma Yansong
Experience
Place
You
" Oscar Niemeyer really inspired me. He's from South America, where nature has meaning. And his architecture was not expensive or high tech but artistic and spiritual. I like that. "
Ma Yansong
Nature
America
Spiritual
" When you look at classical structures, they're often linked to literature, music, or a poem. They were constructed by master builders, which means it's not something standard that you can copy. "
Ma Yansong
Look
Copy
Literature
" I treat my projects as art. "
Ma Yansong
Projects
Art
Treat
" A pool at the edge of the ocean is the simplest geometry, yet you feel connected to the sea. In a forest with the mountains in the background, you also feel the connection to nature, yet it's a very complex geometry. I think architecture is about controlling these feelings. "
Ma Yansong
Nature
Mountains
Think
" I'm trying to express nature in big cities. "
Ma Yansong
Big Cities
Big
Express
" I don't like to talk about sustainability, because sometimes I see green buildings that don't appear any different from those in the past. "
Ma Yansong
Green
Buildings
Sustainability
" I think, in our modern cities, there are a lot of boxes; there are a lot of straight lines. They often deal with efficiency, the function, the structure. "
Ma Yansong
Think
Structure
Efficiency
" The way we do our architecture is to show that we can come up with our own solutions. We don't just take orders. "
Ma Yansong
Show
Own
Way
" The beauty of architecture is it involves work that stretches over a very long time but often starts in one instant, with just one emotion, a kind of instinctual response. "
Ma Yansong
Work
Time
Long
" In our traditional culture, people have a very different view towards nature than in Western culture. We consider humans as part of nature. But in the West, they talk about protecting nature. That's a joke because nature doesn't care; it's humans who need to protect themselves. "
Ma Yansong
Nature
Culture
Care
" In the past, young, talented architects worked together to form a strong social agenda and communicate with a larger audience. That's what today's architecture community should be. "
Ma Yansong
Today
Strong
Together
" Architecture is a special kind of career that showcases the accumulations of culture, time, and history. "
Ma Yansong
Time
Culture
History
" When I started university, I didn't know much about architecture, so I flipped through a lot of magazines, looking at different and exciting images from all over the world. I thought that architecture could be interesting. "
Ma Yansong
World
Architecture
Thought
" I think architects have a major role in being responsible for illustrating what the future could be. Because of the very strong political and commercial climate, many architects are trying very hard to solve everyday issues, to respond to the authorities. "
Ma Yansong
Trying
Think
Strong
" If you look at ancient Chinese paintings, you see mountains, but they are not real mountains; it is something the artists imagined. "
Ma Yansong
Ancient
You
Mountains
" The world itself is already a great textbook. "
Ma Yansong
Textbook
Great
Itself
" The shan-shui city idea is trying to bring traditional values and ways of living to modern high-rise architecture. "
Ma Yansong
Architecture
City
Idea
" In traditional cities like Beijing, Nanjing, and Hangzhou, nature was a very important part of urban planning - not only as a landscape but a part of daily life. "
Ma Yansong
Life
Nature
Like
" A door handle is very symbolic to me. It is the first object that one will interact with before entering a new space. "
Ma Yansong
New
Space
Will
" Traditionally, in the Eastern World, man and nature are close: men find happiness and prosperity in the beauty of nature, even if the nature is actually built to match this very need. "
Ma Yansong
Beauty
Nature
Men
" In China, we had some buildings that looked like the White House or wine bottles. All they seemed to represent was bad taste. "
Ma Yansong
House
Buildings
Bad
" Although we're architects, we believe we do culture; architecture is culture, and the topics we tackle will always arise a broader debate. "
Ma Yansong
Debate
Culture
Architecture