2026 — each of us makes a wish. Give yourself a sense of ritual, and carry that ritual with you through the year. Try to stay close to what you desire. The process is the meaning. — Ma Yansong

Ma Yansong's installation "Super Star" in Yangshup became a vessel for blessings. Visitors write their wishes on wooden cards and hang them on the tower. At 23:59 on December 31, 2025, the Super Star was lit up.

Our 2025

Chronicle of Events

FENIX Museum Opens — Rotterdam, The Netherlands

A century-old warehouse has been transformed into a cultural landmark that brings the past and the future into dialogue. The renovation preserves the building’s rugged original structure, opens the roof at its center, and introduces tornado-like spiraling stairs that draw in natural light.

Ma Yansong Curates the China Pavilion — 19th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia

Under the theme “Rong: Wisdom,” the China Pavilion explores the historical shift from industrial civilization to the intelligent era, examining how traditional Chinese ideas of “nature” can coexist and evolve alongside contemporary science and technology. The exhibition is on view at the Arsenale in Venice from May 10 to November 23, 2025.

Ma Yansong Named Guest Editor of Domus 2026

Ma Yansong becomes Domus’s first Chinese Editor-in-Chief and its youngest Guest Editor. With the theme “Architecture is not architecture,” ten issues invite both the discipline and the public to reconsider architecture’s definition, its attributes, and its relationship to society.

In 2026, Domus will also launch a recurring feature highlighting young studios worldwide and their most daring, innovative work.

Ma Yansong Named to TIME100 (2025)

Ma Yansong is included in TIME’s TIME100 list, recognizing the world’s most influential people.

“Ma Yansong: Architecture and Emotion” Opens — The Netherlands

MAD’s first solo exhibition in the Netherlands opens at the Nieuwe Instituut from May 17 to October 12, 2025. Across seven chapters and 27 architectural and artistic projects, the exhibition traces the evolution of MAD’s design thinking—revealing the conceptual layers and philosophical foundations behind each stage.

MAD Architects Wins Dezeen Award — Architect of the Year (2025

The Dezeen jury praised the studio’s productivity over the past year—highlighting an iconic museum project that expands the boundaries of adaptive reuse, alongside installations exploring eco-friendly futures for architecture.

MAD Yabuli Entrepreneurs Forum (Permanent Site) Wins Gold — Asian Institute of Architects Architecture Awards

The awards received 340 valid entries from around the world, with only seven projects receiving the Gold Award.

The City of Rhapsody — Season 2 Airs

The second season premieres on Tencent News and Tencent Video. Ma Yansong travels across Asia, Europe, and South America with friends—encountering cities, art, culture, and everyday life, while sharing reflections on architecture and how we live.

MAD 21st Anniversary

A Paper Umbrella — China Pavilion, Venice Biennale

Inspired by traditional Chinese oil-paper umbrellas, the installation uses Xuan paper as its primary material, coated and reinterpreted through the logic and beauty of modern structure. Traditional intangible cultural heritage materials and craft are transformed into an outdoor spatial installation—offering shade, shelter from rain, and a place to pause.

City of Plants — Venice Biennale

Using artificial intelligence as a medium, the project explores new forms of dialogue between humans and the natural world.

Breathing Cells — 5th Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism (2025)

An exploration of future building façades: the installation imagines a life-like urban interface through intelligent systems, using breathing light units and misting systems to create a responsive relationship between people and the city.

The Migratory Bird City — Anaya Theatre Festival (2025)

Translating concepts from poet Shigawa’s writing into a walkable architectural entity, a “poetry city-state” woven from 656 recyclable modules hovers between sand and sea—creating spaces for artists and audiences to make, gather, and experience.

Quadrangle Kindergarten — 2025 Dialogue of Architects

On view at Casa de la Arquitectura (Spain’s national architecture museum), from October 8, 2025, to April 30, 2026, in Madrid, Spain.

Construction Underway

Quzhou Sports Park (10,000-Seat Stadium + Swimming Center + Multi-Sport Hall)

Stadium functions and landscape merge into a geo-art form—resembling a volcano—while becoming an open, shared urban public space connected to nature.

Yiwu Grand Theatre

The main structure is concealed beneath a floating canopy. Semi-outdoor “grey space” mediates between the lake landscape and the building’s performance program.

China Philharmonic Hall — Beijing

A translucent curtain-like façade appears faintly amid the city’s bustle: a cultural “palace” hidden in plain sight where people, nature, and music meet.

The ARK — 10,000-Meter Warehouse Renovation, Zhangjiang Cement Plant (Shanghai)

Old and new volumes create a layered sense of time and material presence. New office space is lifted like an ark above the preserved industrial interior, which is transformed into a waterfront meeting space for the city.

Jiaxing Civic Center— Jiaxing

Three venues are linked “hand in hand,” unified by a ring roof of white ceramic tile. At the center, a 6,000 m² circular lawn becomes a civic ground for gathering, resting, and play.

Nanhai Art Center — Foshan

The main structure is concealed beneath a floating canopy. Semi-outdoor “grey space” mediates between the lake landscape and the building’s program.

2026 — Stay Tuned

Lucas Museum of Narrative Art Opens — Los Angeles

A floating canopy part future vessel from Lucas’s sci-fi imagination. The elevated ground level creates a new open public realm, while the interior becomes a vast, luminous cavern containing 35 galleries.

Shenzhen Bay Cultural Plaza Opens in Full

A civic landscape between CBD and nature where the resources of the bay become accessible to everyone. Pavilion programs are integrated into a continuous green terrain.

Anji Cultural & Arts Centre Begins Operations

Six venues unfold smoothly beneath tea fields and “bamboo-leaf” rooftops, forming a landmark art landscape.

Hainan Science & Technology Museum Officially Opens

The main pavilion rises like a cloud in an upward flow. A connecting corridor extends outward, forming a new kind of urban public space, framed by the richness of the rainforest landscape.

Tencent Shenzhen Headquarters “Cloud” Building Goes Live

Three interconnected cloud buildings lift up at their base, making the ground level an open, green urban “grey space” for public life while shaping a coastal visual corridor.

Lishui Airport Opens for Flights

Integrated with the mountains, the airport’s organic form reads like a white bird perched in the landscape. Warm, natural interior materials and transparent daylight create a “garden airport” focused on clarity, comfort, and dialogue with nature.

Shijiazhuang Cloud Sports Center Opens for Use

The design resolves spatial blockage caused by the site’s existing cooling towers. A lifted second-level envelope wraps a breathable air-moving layer, while a single roof extends toward all four edges of the park partially covered with vegetation.

Publications

Towards Ideal Living (New Housing) — forthcoming

Shenzhen Bay Cultural Plaza — to be published soon

Thank you for your interest and support. Happy New Year!

Photography: There Is Architecture; Demone; Iwan Baan; CreatAR Images; Saverio Lombardi Vallaurini; Anaya; LA CASA DE LA ARQUITECTURA; Kecheng is Interesting; Pedro Ramirez; Roberto Gomez; Zhu Yumeng; Chao Zhang; Xi’an Philharmonic Orchestra; Agovision; Remember to Bring Your Card When You Go Out; Fan Yun; Da Ju; Miao Fangyi.