{"id":1169,"date":"2025-05-17T14:45:49","date_gmt":"2025-05-17T14:45:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/?p=1169"},"modified":"2025-05-21T15:30:47","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T15:30:47","slug":"ma-yansong-architecture-and-emotion-traces-mads-creative-journey-at-the-nieuwe-instituut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/17\/ma-yansong-architecture-and-emotion-traces-mads-creative-journey-at-the-nieuwe-instituut\/","title":{"rendered":"ma yansong: architecture and emotion traces MAD\u2019s creative journey at the nieuwe instituut"},"content":{"rendered":"

MAD\u2019s Poetic Vision explored through Rotterdam exhibition<\/h2>\n

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A new exhibition at the Nieuwe Instituut<\/strong><\/a> in Rotterdam<\/strong><\/a>, Ma Yansong: Architecture and Emotion, debuts alongside the long-anticipated opening of the MAD<\/strong><\/a>-designed Fenix Museum of Migration<\/strong><\/a>. During the exhibition\u2019s opening, designboom spoke with<\/a> Aric Chen, General and Artistic Director of the Nieuwe Instituut and curator of the show.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u2018With the opening of Fenix here in Rotterdam, it was a great chance to finally do an exhibition together<\/em>,\u2019 Chen tells designboom. \u2018Ma and I have had quite a number of conversations, both formally and informally. I always felt like we needed to continue it. I was always left wanting more<\/em>.\u2019 This exhibition continues that dialogue, assembling MAD\u2019s early speculations and recent large-scale works into a spatial and emotional journey.<\/p>\n

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images \u00a9 Ossip van Duivenbode<\/a> (unless otherwise stated)<\/p>\n

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Tracing Origins in a Rapidly Changing China<\/h2>\n

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The Rotterdam exhibition Ma Yansong: Architecture and Emotion begins by anchoring MAD<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s origin story in the formative years of independent architectural practice in China. \u2018There were no private architecture firms allowed until the 1990s<\/em>,\u2019 explains Aric Chen of the Nieuwe Instituut<\/a><\/strong>. \u2018Ma is part of that second generation of Chinese architects. It\u2019s really remarkable to see how quickly things took off<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>\n

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A central installation expands upon MAD\u2019s 2008 publication MAD Dinner, a document of creative gatherings the founders held during China\u2019s early 2000s building boom. These interdisciplinary salons gave rise to speculative urban visions \u2014 a Tiananmen Square reimagined as a park, an aquarium seen through the perspective of a fish \u2014 which now appear in model form, offering insight into the studio\u2019s earliest attempts to reframe public space and identity.<\/p>\n

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MAD opens its first solo museum exhibition in over a decade at the Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam<\/p>\n

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ma yansong\u2019s Fenix as Cultural Anchor<\/h2>\n

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Among the most anticipated works on view is MAD\u2019s design for the Fenix Museum of Migration, the newly opened museum in Rotterdam dedicated to global migration stories. Fenix features the Tornado, a swirling, double-helix stair that lifts visitors through the atrium of a historic warehouse to a rooftop observatory. The Tornado connects the ground to the sky, but also history to the present.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s MAD\u2019s first cultural building in Europe, and its role is deeply symbolic, especially given the museum\u2019s context in Katendrecht, once one of the first Chinatowns of continental Europe. The exhibition offers detailed insight into the design of Fenix as a built manifestation of MAD\u2019s evolving interest in architecture as a vessel for memory.<\/p>\n

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the exhibition coincides with the completion of MAD\u2019s nearby Fenix Museum of Migration<\/p>\n

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MAD\u2019s longstanding engagement with shanshui \u2014 the classical Chinese worldview in which landscape, city, and spirit cohere \u2014 remains a thread throughout the show. \u2018Shan Shui painting was a big influence on Ma for a certain point<\/em>,\u2019 Chen continues. \u2018The studio has since moved on, but the relevance of that is still really important for understanding the firm\u2019s work today<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>\n

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Rather than presenting shanshui as a metaphor or motif, the exhibition shows how the philosophy permeates form-making, whether in the land-integrated design of Quzhou Sports Park or in the undulating mass of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

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Aric Chen curates the exhibition to reflect two decades of MAD\u2019s emotionally-driven architecture<\/p>\n

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The exhibition\u2019s title, Architecture and Emotion, invites viewers to consider architecture as more than a functional or aesthetic exercise. \u2018Emotion is not something that we, here in this part of the world, are used to thinking about when we talk about architecture<\/em>,\u2019 says Chen. \u2018But with MAD, emotions are very much connected with the idea of nature<\/em>.\u2019 The Nieuwe Instituut\u2019s interest in climate resilience and spatial justice finds unexpected alignment in MAD\u2019s emphasis on sensory experience and cultural memory, positioning the exhibition as a counterpoint to more techno-rational design narratives.<\/p>\n

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The selection of projects, Chen noted, leans toward recent and ongoing work, but also draws attention to the studio\u2019s cross-cultural approach. \u2018We always want to bring other cultural perspectives into the conversation<\/em>,\u2019 he says. \u2018What Ma and MAD really do is provide that other schema or worldview for looking at space and how we experience it<\/em>.\u2019 From Beijing to Los Angeles, Paris to Rotterdam, MAD\u2019s projects resist a singular national identity.<\/p>\n

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MAD\u2019s early years are presented through models and materials from its 2008 publication MAD Dinner<\/p>\n

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emotion is presented as a primary design force linking people, nature, and space across cultures<\/p>\n

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Shan Shui philosophy continues to influence MAD\u2019s organic and landscape-integrated architecture<\/p>\n

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projects like the Lucas Museum and One River North demonstrate MAD\u2019s design language<\/p>\n

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project info:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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name:\u00a0<\/strong>Ma Yansong: Architecture & Emotion<\/p>\n

museum:\u00a0<\/strong>Nieuwe Instituut<\/a> | @nieuweinstituut<\/a><\/p>\n

architecture:\u00a0<\/strong>MAD<\/a> | @madarchitects<\/a><\/p>\n

location:\u00a0<\/strong>Rotterdam, The Netherlands<\/p>\n

opening: <\/strong>May 16th, 2025<\/p>\n

photography:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a9 designboom, \u00a9 Ossip van Duivenbode<\/a> | @ossipvanduivenbode<\/a><\/p>\n

The post ma yansong: architecture and emotion traces MAD\u2019s creative journey at the nieuwe instituut<\/a> appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MAD\u2019s Poetic Vision explored through Rotterdam exhibition \u00a0 A new exhibition at the Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam, Ma Yansong: Architecture and Emotion, debuts alongside the long-anticipated opening of the MAD-designed Fenix Museum of Migration. During the exhibition\u2019s opening, designboom spoke with Aric Chen, General and Artistic Director of the Nieuwe Instituut and curator of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1169"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1178,"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169\/revisions\/1178"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}