Like the buildings of Ma’s heroes, Harbin goes well beyond its sensational looks.
He also interned with Peter Eisenman in New York, and is a great admirer of Frank Gehry’s expressive forms. Parametrics have liberated architects to create ever more dramatic swooping forms, and early on Ma began to master the CAD-based language of Zaha Hadid, whom he worked for in London for a year after earning a master’s degree at Yale University. What makes this building so remarkable is the confidence of its design and the quality of the finishes. Already, government offices have begun to relocate to the area, and a wall of residential and commercial towers will eventually surround the parkland, in a juxtaposition Ma likens to Central Park. Located in the wetlands to the north of the Songhua River, the swooping twin buildings were planned as the centrepiece of a new city that will complement the metropolis of 10 million on the south bank. At 40, the Beijing native already has an impressive list of mega-projects behind him, from his first international competition win – the curvaceous twin condo towers outside Toronto, dubbed the Marilyns – to the boulder-like museum located in the Manchurian outpost of Ordos.Īll are remarkable structures, but his most ambitious – and accomplished – yet is an opera house and theatre in the northern Chinese city of Harbin. The cultural monument is set to become a powerful symbol for a city on the rise, and for its designer, Be ijing architect Ma Yansong.Īs most Chinese architects are struggling to compete with the popular appeal of foreign architects on native soil, Ma Yansong, principal of MAD Architects, is flourishing.
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