In order to help mainland China's architecture students complete an overseas architectural trip in their youth and give them the opportunity to study architectural themes of their choice, MAD established the MAD Travel Fund in 2009. We believe that travel is one of the most important ways for architects to learn. Only by experiencing architectural spaces in person can we inspire different ideas and further understand ourselves. Going out to broaden our horizons while reflecting on local culture is the concept that the MAD Travel Fund hopes to convey to young architects.

In the summer of 2013, five architecture students stood out from more than a hundred applicants and were given the opportunity to complete a 10-14 day architectural trip in a city or region of their choice. Each of the selected candidates this year expressed the most intuitive understanding of the meaning of travel: personal experience is essential to fully understand the meaning of a building or a place. After three months, the five 2013 MAD Travel Fund winners completed their "adventure journey" one after another, and they traveled to Switzerland, Greece, Spain, Portugal and Germany. For these young architects, this may be the most exotic learning opportunity in their early design careers.

At 16:00 on December 13, 2013 (Friday), MAD held a MAD Travel Fund report meeting in its Beijing studio. As they bid farewell to 2013 and ushered in the new year, the five students brought everyone their stories of "on the road" and architecture. The event also invited commentator Bao Pao, MAD Travel Fund founder Ma Yansong and MAD partner Dang Qun to communicate with the students.

Li Siqi, postgraduate student, School of Architecture, Tianjin University, destination: Spain

Architecture is no longer the "machine for living" as described by Le Corbusier. Li Siqi believes that with the leap forward of science and technology and society, architecture is gradually shedding its basic functional coat and exuding a charm beyond the material. In this trip to Spain, he was eager to experience far more than the physical properties of the building's appearance, space or texture. He was more concerned about the presence of "people" behind the buildings and cities. In the difference between Spain's passionate and unrestrained humanities and China's calm and implicit, Li Siqi returned his travel experience to the relationship between architecture and nature. The intricate connections between architecture and the sea, architecture and cliffs, and architecture and history are the "human" existence he captured during this trip.

Wang Siyi, undergraduate 10th grade, School of Architecture, Central Academy of Fine Arts, destination: Switzerland

How to deal with the relationship between tradition, context and contemporary social development in space? Wang Siyi hopes to find the answer in Switzerland, which has never abandoned modernist architecture. The joy of her first overseas trip may have surpassed rational exploration, but it brought her the opportunity to think from a subtle perspective of life. In Switzerland, she visited many school buildings and experienced a kind of quiet warmth from these buildings. This made her better understand that architecture is first and foremost a container and background for life, sensitively accommodating the details of life.

Dong Xiaoxiao, Master's Degree, School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, Destination: Portugal

Due to his love for Siza Vieira's works and his obsession with the horizontality of architecture, Dong Xiaoxiao embarked on his trip to Portugal. After observing and exploring the outside world in the most physical way, he was awakened to the fact that it is easy to misinterpret only in two-dimensional space. On the sunny coast of the Mediterranean, he realized that under the gift of nature, the Portuguese architectural masters naturally expressed the life itself in their cultural background in a witty and elegant way with architectural language.

Chen Xixi, undergraduate class of 2009, School of Architecture, Harbin Institute of Technology, destination: Germany

With the idea of ​​how Germany dealt with the sudden urban construction and national trauma after the war, Chen Xixi embarked on a journey to visit Germany and Austria. To his surprise, he could not feel the desire for cities in China at present when walking through the cities of Germany and Austria. On the contrary, the ordinary and complex nature of life is repeatedly interpreted in German architecture and cities. Compared with the mass production or weird filling of Chinese cities, how should urban desire be expressed and at what level?

Huang Yaojun, undergraduate class of 2009, School of Architecture and Art, Central South University, destination: Greece

Huang Yaojun believes that architecture is the carrier of life and memory, and the rich memories in the ancient Greek city deeply attracted him to explore. He wanted to find the mysterious bond between architecture, people and nature in this ancient country. However, while lamenting how the ancient city cherishes memories, he also found that the suppression of history is the shackles of the development of the ancient city. Looking at China's urbanization construction, the disappearance and replacement of old buildings have taken away people's memories of past life. The new city is both contradictory and comical, but also full of vitality. Based on our understanding of reality, how should we observe critically?

2013 MAD Travel Fund Live