A Quote by Ma Yansong

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.
Planning a garden, park, building, or city shouldn't be done in an office.
I felt no shame in these activities, because I understood what almost no one else seemed to grasp: that there was only an infinitesimal difference, a difference so small that it barely existed except as a figment of the human imagination, between working in a tall green glass building on Park Avenue and collecting litter in a park. In fact, there may have been no difference at all.
A piazza is not a plaza. The plaza is the theme park of the piazza; the plaza is the commercial version. A piazza is an empty space with no function. This is what Europeans understand.
The strengths landscape architecture draws from its garden design heritage include: the Vitruvian design tradition of balancing utility, firmness and beauty; use of the word 'landscape' to mean 'a good place' - as the objective of the design process; a comprehensive approach to open space planning involving city parks, greenways and nature outside towns; a planning theory about the contextualisation of development projects; the principle that development plans should be adapted to their landscape context.
Spring and fall in New York are the best seasons here to get out and about. I like the little park in Dumbo between the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridge. I like Prospect Park.
The traditional notion of an architect having a vision of a building and then drawing it either on paper or on a computer and then constructing it isn't really how architecture works and in reality the computer has a lot of influence on design.
I say to my colleague from New York that if someone who has a concealed carry permit... in the State of South Dakota that goes to New York and is in Central Park - Central Park is a much safer place.
Computer language design is just like a stroll in the park. Jurassic Park, that is.
The good building is not one that hurts the landscape, but one which makes the landscape more beautiful than it was before the building was built.
Concepts differentiate architecture from mere building...A bicycle shed with a concept is architecture; a cathedral without one is just a building.
François Mitterrand was a student of architecture, he had done a lot of research before he called me. He said, "You did something special at the National Gallery of Art in Washington - you brought the new and the old together." But John Russell Pope finished the West Building in 1941, so when the East Building opened it was only about 40 years old. But the Louvre is 800 years old! A much bigger design challenge.
Could we design an all-glass building with internal channels and networks for airflow and water circulation? Can we surpass the great modern tradition of discrete formal and functional partitions and generate an all-in-one building skin?
As an architect it is very important that you distinguish between different realities. There's the reality of the drawing and the reality of the building. So one could say, or at least it is the common belief that architecture has to be built; I always denied that, because ultimately it is based on an idea. I don't ever need a building to verify my idea. Of course, what with a building is more its vanity and actual physical experience. But I anticipate; I wouldn't even build it if I could not anticipate how it would be.
My dad, he's definitely one of greatest writers of his generation. There is no question about it. When you are that good, when work is that good, you have to appreciate every aspect of it. It's the architecture of it, it's like looking at a Frank Lloyd Wright building or a Lautner building, it's master craftsmanship. Every aspect of it intertwines in a perfectly harmonious way. That's what architecture is at its best and the architecture of my father's music is on that level.
David Harrington asked me to write a piece for Kronos Quartet for a performance in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. I live just two blocks from the park and spend many mornings running around it. The park for me symbolizes much of what I love about New York, especially the stunning diversity of Brooklyn with its myriad cultures and communities.
The ultimate aim of all artistic activity is building! ... Architects, sculptors, painters, we must all get back to craft! ... The artist is a heightened manifestation of the craftsman. ... Let us form ... a new guild of craftsmen without the class divisions that set out to raise an arrogant barrier between craftsmen and artists! ... Let us together create the new building of the future which will be all in one: architecture and sculpture and painting.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!