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MAD ARCHITECTURE
MA YANSONG – QUN DANG
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NATIONAL MUSEUM OF CHINA ENTRY
Designed by MAD Architects for the 2011 international competition for a new national museum in Beijing, their proposal aims at being a city-sized museum where the public space is the greatest good. Situated on the central axis of the 2008 Olympic site, and part of a six mega volume masterplan, the main question became how to design something iconic on an unrealistic and inhuman city scale. Their response became a hybrid between an elevated public square and a floating mega building above. More images and architects’ description after the break.
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Since China began opening up to the world in the late 1970’s, China’s contemporary creative scene has been expanding to the stage of global confidence with added investment in its artists. Built in 1962, the National Art Museum of China, already having one of the largest collections in the country, has been the backdrop to some of the most influential exhibitions in contemporary Chinese history. With the planned move into a new building, the organizing committee followed a global trend: bigger, located in a designated ‘art district’ and more iconic.
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Organized as an open city in three layers, the result is a sequence of outdoor and indoor spaces. In these spaces, nature and function are not separated but intertwined. This creates an architecture that achieves an understanding about one’s bodily presence among the objects that surround him, instead to a functional agglomeration of pre-defined uses.
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The one-story ground floor holds all ancillary functions that have the ability to operate independently from the opening hours of the museum. Atop this is a 20,000 square meter urban plaza that houses a permanent art collection on show. This space is connected to the Olympic park by a bridge, extending an otherwise ignored side of the urban plan. The organization of the exhibition space allows visitors to choose their own way around the collection, all the while, being surrounded with an open view towards the city. As a finale, a domed exhibition hall at the top integrates nature with human and art space. Defined as indefinite, it gives space to the largest works of our time. This ‘floating’ art city hovers over visitors like a cloud of possibilities.
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MAD architects’ proposal shows how a building can bring the city and art together, creating a urban public space where people can consider their relationship between time, point of view and each other.
If you would like to see other projects of my suggestion from Mad Architect please click to link belove.
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MAD ARCHITECTS’ S
OFFICE
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MAD works in forward-looking environments developing futuristic
architecture based on a contemporary interpretation of the eastern spirit of
nature. All of MAD's projects - from residential complexes or offices to
cultural centres - desire to protect a sense of community and orientation
toward nature, offering people the freedom to develop their own experience.
Founded in 2004 by Ma Yansong, the office first earned worldwide attention in
2006 by winning an international competition to design a residential tower near
Toronto, expected to be completed in the end of 2012.
MAD has been
commissioned by clients of all backgrounds, leading to an intriguing
combination of diverse project designs. MAD’s ongoing projects include two
major cultural projects in Harbin: the China Wood Sculpture Museum and Harbin
Culture Island, an opera house and cultural center that will retain the
original wetlands as an urban park between the old and new city. Additionally,
MAD is designing the headquarter of a major fashion brand in Xiamen. MAD’s
residential projects strive for a symbiotic relationship between man, shelter
and nature. The Huangshan residential villas is design to nestle into its
natural landscapes, whilst the Qingdao private residential courtyard draws
inspiration from the experience of a traditional Chinese flaneur and the beauty
and emotions developed through meandering across the natural landscape. MAD has
several projects underway ranging from conceptual design to construction phases
around the world. Internationally, MAD is designing a residential
development in the heart of Rome, a mix use development in Amsterdam and the
aforementioned Absolute Tower in Toronto, now nearing completion.
In 2011 MAD
completed their first museum in Ordos , Inner Mongolia. It is a
futuristic shell that protects the cultural history of the region and refutes
the rational new city outside. Previous completed projects include the Hutong
Bubble 32, a small scale intervention inside the delicate urban tissue of old
Beijing, and Hongluo clubhouse, a fluid space without internal boundaries that
rises from Hongluo Lake.
MAD is led by Ma
Yansong, Dang Qun and Yosuke Hayano. They have been awarded the Young
Architecture Award from the New York Institute of Architects in 2006 and the
2011 RIBA international fellowship.
