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" 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. "

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" Since the Industrial Revolution, we tend to use technology to show our power: you know, we build high-rises, towers, big buildings that become symbols of power and capitalism. We don't talk about how emotions and nature can be connected. "

Ma Yansong

Power

Technology

Nature

" When I was young and used to look at Chinese architecture, there was no clear definition between what was landscaping and what was architecture. "

" The way we do our architecture is to show that we can come up with our own solutions. We don't just take orders. "

" We need to be brave and tell the politicians what a better future could be. "

" The world itself is already a great textbook. "

" In China, it's very easy to make architecture special because anything you design will look different, as most parts of the city are very similar. They make so many massive residential buildings. "

" Sometimes I sketch and then scan my sketch directly to make the curves more freehand. I don't want to make perfect industrial curves. "

" 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. "

" Ultimately, the artistic part of architecture has always interested me. "

Ma Yansong

Interested

Always

" We try to turn buildings into landscapes - defying the idea of modernism which sees nature and buildings as two distinct elements. "

" I grew up in Beijing, and there weren't many modern buildings during my childhood. I was influenced by traditional culture - the courtyards, the hutongs, the old city, and all the art forms - so, very naturally, I brought this to my practice. "

" The way a human can coexist with nature has to be at the spiritual level. "

" I'm trying to create architecture as landscape. But I'm not copying nature. "

" The difficulty with big cities does not lie in skyscrapers or high-rises per se; rather, it is the values concealed within those buildings which lead to the loss of our humanity and our sense of spiritual emptiness. "

" Chinese people need to be aware of their present and ask, 'What's our culture? What can we bring to the world?' I don't think there's anything wrong with that. "

" Architecture is a special kind of career that showcases the accumulations of culture, time, and history. "

" 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. "

" People can live in nature, and they won't necessarily destroy it. "

" The shan-shui city idea is trying to bring traditional values and ways of living to modern high-rise architecture. "

" When we talk about a city, we need to talk about what the future is. Whats the ideal scenario in the future? "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I have never been to Mars. What will we discover when we get there? A red landscape, quiet horizon, frozen glaciers? Probably all is as beautiful, in its own way, as the Earth was thousands of years ago. "

" 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. "

" People love to go closer to nature and other people, so we need to create environments that let people have these emotional connections. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Modern buildings have become memorials to power and capital. More and more, they're isolated from people. "

Ma Yansong

Become

People

" Although we're architects, we believe we do culture; architecture is culture, and the topics we tackle will always arise a broader debate. "

" When I graduated from high school, I thought I wanted to make science fiction movies, so I applied to film school, but I couldn't get in. A professor told me I should try architecture instead. "