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" 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. "

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" Since the Beijing Olympics in 2008, our office has been discussing how we can make architecture more human and at one with nature. We need to ask ourselves, what legacy do we want to leave behind on humankind's urban culture? "

Ma Yansong

Architecture

Culture

Nature

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

" I treat my projects as art. "

" I don't use tools to create things, but I use them to realize things. "

" A lot of ancient poetry sees in nature a reflection of human emotions, and in a post-industrialized era, once people have become more aware of the necessity of a more harmonious relation between man and nature, we need to build cities which can connect with human spiritual needs instead of being merely functional. "

" 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. "

" I grew up in the old neighborhood of Beijing where you had a courtyard and trees. Actually, the whole of Beijing was a garden - the Forbidden City - and the lakes and gardens in the city center were all artificial. "

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

" If we're talking about the urban landscape as an advanced, forward-thinking art form, there must be some intellectual thinking involved. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" There must be a way to combine the high rise and high-density environment with nature. Maybe we can have our gardens in the sky. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" In China, we had some buildings that looked like the White House or wine bottles. All they seemed to represent was bad taste. "

" 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. "

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

Ma Yansong

Become

People

" 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. "

" People think that buildings are permanent, but in China, this isn't true; we can always demolish and remake it better. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I think where traditional values are concerned, Chinese people see nature as very symbolic. It's a form of culture. "

" 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. "

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

" To allow millions of people to live together on limited land, we have to go to the sky; we have to build a high rise. But we can still build nature and social space into the towers. Each family can have their own courtyard in the sky. "

" Architecture is about experience: not only visual but also what you can touch, what you can feel. "