'Shanshui City', the latest book from MAD Architects' founder and principal partner, Ma Yansong, Ma's poetic, yet precise language details the development and practice of design philosophy At the core of 'Shanshui City' is the idea that, "architects should delineate a new ideal for the city of the future, to gradually construct an urban environment that embodies both the convenience of the modern city and the ancient Eastern affinity for the natural world." 'Shanshui' is an idealised worldview developed by Chinese through extended contact with the natural world, a worldview that integrates the everyday life of humanity with the impulse to seek spiritual refuge in nature. This 'Shanshui City' is not simply an eco-city, or a garden-city, nor does it imply modelling the city's architecture on natural forms such as mountains. It represents humanity's affinity for the natural world, and our quest for inner fulfilment, as expressed in philosophies of the East. 103 illustrations

The first complete overview of the most important contemporary architecture practice ever to have emerged from China The skylines of modern China are punctuated by architecture that amazes, inspires, and awes. Many of these structures are the work of new, experimental practices like China-based MAD Architects. MAD Works not only documents the buildings of this group of avant-garde architects but also traces the development of their ideas through associated practice including art, research, and exhibition projects. Organized thematically, the book explores the underlying concepts of MAD Architects' work. MAD Works is illustrated with photographs, architectural drawings, and 3D visualizations to provide a thorough exploration of MAD Architect's international portfolio of completed works, unbuilt projects, and future ideas.

China’s rapid urbanization has restructured the great socialist cities Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou into mega cities that embrace global capitalism. This book focuses on the urban transformations of these three cities: Beijing is the nation’s political and cultural capital; Shanghai is the economic and financial powerhouse; and Guangzhou is the capital of Guangdong Province and the regional center of south China. All are historical cities with rich imperial, colonial, and regional heritages, and all have been drastically transformed in the last six decades. This book examines the cities’ continuous urban legacies since 1949 in relation to state governance, economic reforms, and cultural production. By adopting local historical perspectives, it offers more nuanced accounts of the current urban change than the modernization/globalization paradigm and conceptualizes the change in the context of the cities’ socialist, colonial, and imperial legacies. Specifically, Samuel Y. Liang offers an overview of the urban planning and territorial expansion of the great cities since 1949; explores the production and consumption of urban housing, its spatial forms, media representations, and socio-political implications; and examines the state-led redevelopment of old urban cores and residential neighborhoods, and the urban conservation movement. Remaking China’s Great Cities will be of great interest to students and scholars working across a range of fields including Chinese studies, Chinese culture and society, urban studies and architecture.

The book is the first to define the meaning and components of the grid and apply it in Chinese planning history. It provides a fresh methodology, pushing the boundary of planning by this new practical tool for planners and governors and new perspective for the architecture and city planning faculties. From graphs to rules, from facts to in-depth analysis, this book focuses on the tool of urban planning, the grid, with thoughtful organization of knowledge from Chinese history, architecture and city planning discipline, providing knowledge along with politics, military, customs, mysterious Fengshui theories and astrology beliefs. Moreover, the book proved the link between grids and social aims, discussing each kind of aim by thoughtful organization of data collected from 301 prefecture cities, unfolding the powers propelling the city formation and shedding light on what shaped our cities today.

In Reshaping the Frontier Landscape: Dongchuan in Eighteenth-century Southwest China, Fei HUANG examines the process of reshaping the landscape of Dongchuan, a remote frontier city in Southwest China in the eighteenth century. Rich copper deposits transformed Dongchuan into one of the key outposts of the Qing dynasty, a nexus of encounters between various groups competing for power and space. The frontier landscape bears silent witness to the changes in its people’s daily lives and in their memories and imaginations. The literati, officials, itinerant merchants, commoners and the indigenous people who lived there shaped and reshaped the local landscape by their physical efforts and cultural representations. This book demonstrates how multiple landscape experiences developed among various people in dependencies, conflicts and negotiations in the imperial frontier.

Urban planners across the world are faced with sustainable development issues in their work, especially when they are tasked with creating green cities or where sustainable and smart growth in urban settings are set as primary goals. This book introduces green city planning and practices from the three dimensions of green-building innovation, community development and smart city strategies, and argues that effective implementation of green city planning are a necessary pre-condition for reaching sustainable urban development. A range of authors representing a broad disciplinary spectrum bring together the different standards of green building methods and urban design techniques and clearly sketch the roles of both spatial designers and urban researchers in the implementation of green city planning at regional, community and single-building level in order to arrive at an integrated approach across different scales.

A seductive vision of the future from the most promising firm in China led by Ma Yansong, an important voice in the new generation of architects. Conceived and designed by Ma Yansong, founder of MAD Architects, MAD Rhapsody documents the buildings of this avant-garde architecture firm and traces the development of their ideas through associated practice including art, research, and exhibition projects. With photographs, drawings, and models, the book highlights 23 projects from the past six years, both built and in process. Known for their “organic and dreamlike architecture” that creates a dialogue with nature, earth, and sky, MAD projects reach all over the globe. At age 46, Ma Yansong is one of China’s best-known architects. His curvilinear, free-form, and futuristic designs are often compared to those of his mentor, Zaha Hadid. Ma’s greatest inspiration is nature; his opera house in the northern Chinese city of Harbin resembles a snow-capped mountain, while his master plan for the city of Nanjing calls for sloping buildings covered with vertical louvers that resemble waterfalls. Other projects include the Ordos Museum in the wilderness of Inner Mongolia, the Absolute Towers in Canada, and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles.