From October 31st to March 3rd, 2013, the ICO Museum in Madrid is hosting an exhibition dedicated to Ma Yansong and MAD. Organized by the ICO Museum and in collaboration with Casa Asia, the exhibition "Ma Yansong - Between (global) modernity and (local) tradition" has become a reality. The opening ceremony of the exhibition was attended by Zhu Bangzao, Chinese Ambassador to Spain, Román Escolano, President of the Spanish Official Credit Bureau ICO, well-known figures in Spanish politics and culture, and many international media.

"I focus on the expression between the environment in which the building is located and personal emotions. When designing, I imagine myself seeing a virtual city suspended above the city, nature, and land. The city changes in size, and many things appear in front of me. I feel them silently and try my best to find a way to express my inner feelings. At this time, what language I use has become less important, whether it is straight lines or curves. I just want others to get the same feeling or even get other unexpected discoveries," said Ma Yansong. "MAD represents an attitude, a gesture towards architecture and society. Through our works, we hope to inspire people through the connection between architecture and nature and the place where it is located."

The Absolute Tower in Canada, which made MAD famous, is about to be completed. At this moment, the ICO Museum hosted the "Ma Yansong-Between (Global) Modernization and (Local) Tradition" exhibition. This is a comprehensive exhibition of the architect's most representative buildings and recent works that have never been made public before.

The exhibition will feature 30 of MAD’s buildings, including completed buildings such as the Ordos City Art Museum in China and the Monroe Tower in Mississauga, Canada, as well as recent works that have never been publicly displayed. The ICO Museum’s exhibition is the first to focus on a comprehensive collection of MAD’s work, aiming to demonstrate its ambition to find architectural inspiration in Chinese landscape painting and poetry. In a global context where urban design is becoming increasingly homogeneous, the exhibition uses systematic and humanistic spaces to present a natural and humanistic sense of urban life. “An architecture should re-evaluate the relationship between art and architecture, while going beyond this principle, and should understand that architecture must have a social impact after considering local traditions and the reality of global urbanization,” said an exhibition staff member. “The products of these spatial perceptions generate an unignorable and intertwined dynamic that permeates the interaction between localization, place, and space users who live in the social spatial system of the city.” With this exhibition, the ICO Museum re-embraces architecture in its exhibition program as a foundational pillar to present a national and international dialogue under the theme of “making space”. In addition to the exhibition, Actar has published a detailed illustrated anthology that will be available worldwide.

Ma Yansong, Between (global) modernization and (local) tradition
October 31 - March 3, 2013