In a traditional Japanese or Chinese garden, it's not only about the building or temple but about the whole setup - the structure, the landscape, the light, the plants, the water. The whole experience that makes your life there so beautiful.
Ma Yansong
China has some cities, traditional cities, with a long history. They are so beautiful, and they were planned so smartly. I call them gardens on the city scale. For example, Beijing has mountains, waters, lakes, bridges, towers. It was a very poetic city.
We try to turn buildings into landscapes - defying the idea of modernism which sees nature and buildings as two distinct elements.
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.
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.
We need to enter a new era to make nature and humans more emotionally connected in modern cities.
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.
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.
The way we do our architecture is to show that we can come up with our own solutions. We don't just take orders.
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.
The way a human can coexist with nature has to be at the spiritual level.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Ultimately, the artistic part of architecture has always interested me.
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.
If we're talking about the urban landscape as an advanced, forward-thinking art form, there must be some intellectual thinking involved.
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.
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.
I think where traditional values are concerned, Chinese people see nature as very symbolic. It's a form of culture.
I'm trying to create architecture as landscape. But I'm not copying nature.
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.
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?
'Shan shui' you can literally translate as 'mountain and water.' In traditional Chinese culture, there are a lot of paintings about shan shui, but now we're talking about a shan-shui city.
Early in my career, I tried to bring an artistic feeling to architecture. That's really the intent and impression of what I think about: context, space, shapes, and landscape.
Architects like to work in a problematic environment.
The shan-shui city idea is trying to bring traditional values and ways of living to modern high-rise architecture.
In China, we had some buildings that looked like the White House or wine bottles. All they seemed to represent was bad taste.
Architecture is about experience: not only visual but also what you can touch, what you can feel.
Architecture is a special kind of career that showcases the accumulations of culture, time, and history.
A door handle is very symbolic to me. It is the first object that one will interact with before entering a new space.
Although we're architects, we believe we do culture; architecture is culture, and the topics we tackle will always arise a broader debate.
Sometimes I sketch and then scan my sketch directly to make the curves more freehand. I don't want to make perfect industrial curves.
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.
It's very strange: if you're a philosopher or musician or an artist, people automatically believe you can see the future. Even if they don't like you, they accept your vision as an individual.
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.
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.
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.
Historically, sci-fi movies have played an important role in inspiring young people.
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.
Instead of making grand structures and beautiful buildings, we should focus on the environment and the urban space and how you encourage people to live.
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.
We need to be brave and tell the politicians what a better future could be.
We need architects to be visionaries.
When we talk about a city, we need to talk about what the future is. Whats the ideal scenario in the future?
We proposed Tiananmen Square - this very empty political square in the city centre - should turn green. Maybe in the future, this space could become a very human and open urban space. And if that happens, I think that all the cities around China will follow to change.
