MAD Architects (MAD) presents its latest project, Nanjing Zendai Himalayas Center, at the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale held in Venice, Italy. The Nanjing Zendai Himalayas Center is a city-scale urban project, with an overall building area of approximately 560,000 sqm.

As a recent realization of the concept “Shanshui City,” “Chaoyang Park Plaza” has begun construction. It marks another milestone in one of the practices of MAD’s design theory. This project pushes the boundary of the urbanization process in modern cosmopolitan life by creating a dialogue between artificial scenery and natural landscapes.

On April 10th and 12th, 2014, just before the opening of MAD’s LA office, Ma Yansong was invited by the Virginia Society AIA and Cal Poly’s LA Metro program at A+D Museum, Los Angeles, to speak about the designing with nature and architectural concept of Shanshui City.

Starting April 11th, MAD pieces “Nanjing Zendai Thumb Plaza”, “Absolute Towers”, and “Hutong Bubble” are put on exhibition for a period of one month in the Berlin Chinese Culture Center’s “Chinese Shanshui City Design Exhibition”.

11 March 2014 – The World Economic Forum named Ma Yansong, the founder of MAD Architects, a Young Global Leaders for the year of 2014. This year’s list includes 214 young leaders from 66 countries. Ma Yansong is the first Chinese architect for this honor.

Jan 30, CNN selects MAD work Harbin Cultural Center among “10 eye-popping new buildings in 2014”. The article praises the “curvy, organic structure” of the project, and describes the design’s aim to “join art and nature in an integrated environment.”

As we bid farewell to the year of the snake, we wholly welcome the year of Ma (the horse). On behalf of Ma Yansong, MAD’s partners, and the rest of the architects at MAD, thank you for supporting us all this way and witnessing our growth. We wish you all a happy Chinese New Year!

M+’s architecture collection will be showcased on January 10th in Hong Kong. It is the first of its kind in Asia, with collections dating back to the 1920s, and will have among them MAD architects’ Fish Tank, Beijing 2050, and Absolute Towers.

The winners of this year’s MAD Travel Fellowship shared their thoughts and experiences on their trip abroad with us at the MAD office in Beijing. The five gifted students met with Ma Yansong and MAD staff in a discussion on architecture, both contemporary and ancient.

December 6th, 2013, Shenzhen. Ma Yansong presented his work, “Shanshui Experiment Complex” in the Border Warehouse of BI-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture 2013 in Shenzhen.

Ma Yasong was invited as a key-note speaker by the director of Deutsches Architecture Museum (DAM), Mr. Peter Cachola Schmal to speak at DAM’s “International Highrise Night”, and to join the panel discussion about the future of highrise buildings.

On Nov 11, 2013, Ma Yansong was invited to give a lecture at the Berlage Institute, Rotterdam. In the lecture, Ma introduced MAD’s recent projects, and spoke on his ideas about future city development and his wish to combine the eastern philosophy with modern city construction.

On Nov 9th, invited by Kunsthaus Bregenz, Ma Yansong attended and spoke at the symposium The Seismographs of Architecture. Kunsthaus Bregenz was designed by Peter Zumthor at 1997. It was known as the best representative of Zumthor’s works.

On the 6th November 2013, Ma Yansong was invited to speak at PLÅT annual seminar in Oslo, introducing MAD’s projects and joining the discussion on the “Metals of Possibilities”.

As the only design team from China, MAD was selected to participate in the second stage of the New Moscow Financial Center Masterplan competition. This is Moscow’s largest city design project in recent years; 83 teams participated in the first stage competition. On the Nov 6th, the jury announced the list of 8 teams selected for the next round.

On October 23, Ma Yansong gave a lecture at the Barlett School of Architecture, where he introduced some of the exciting new projects coming out of MAD as well as his ideas on the design philosophy of “Shanshui City”.

“West Bund 2013: A Biennial of Architecture and Contemporary Art”, opening on Oct. 20th, invites MAD. On exhibit are MAD’s Hutong Bubble, Ordos Museum, Fake Hills, and Shanshui City Research .

Oct 17, the Good Design 2013, jointly organized by The Outlook Magazine and Bloomberg BusinessWeek, raised its curtain at the Orange Hall in Sanlitun. Ma Yansong received the Good Design 2013 Architect Award.

Invited by Swarovski, Ma Yansong creates “Moon Landscape”, a big installation art piece for the “Digital Crystal” exhibition. The exhibition goes from 28th September to 3rd October 2013 during the Beijing Design Week.

The “Palace of China – Architecture China 2013” exhibition opens on September 26th in Segovia, Spain. As the opening exhibition of the HAY Festival, it will stay in the Palacio Quintanar for three months, and givess to visitors an opportunity to learn about Chinese architectural design, social change, and city development.

Ma Yansong won the first China Architecture Design in 21st Century Award, as the D21 Young Chinese Architect Award, and D21 Best Chinese Architecture Design (Business Building).

MAD architects’ Absolute Towers, nicknamed the “Marilyn Monroe” towers for their soft curves, are jointly named the world’s best new skyscraper in a recent CNN article.

Beijing, September 06, 2013 –In February 2010, MAD won the competition to design the cultural center of Harbin. The entire project covers an area of 1.8 square kilometers, with a construction area of 79,000 square meters. In August 2013, the overall structure of the Cultural Center was completed and the entire project began to take shape.

At 6pm New York time, September 5th of 2013, a green building with distinct Oriental features designed by Ma Yansong was revealed at Times Square in New York city. Located along the lake of Beijing Chaoyang Park, this city complex is the continuation of “Shan-Shui City”– a design concept pursued by Ma Yansong.

Ma Yansong was invited to speak at the “The New Wave of Chinese Architecture” lecture in Moscow, hosted by Strelka Institute on July 24th, 2013. The lecture also featured Curator Fang Zhenning and architect Meng Yan as speakers.