Ma Yansong · Architect · MAD Architects · The WLS 100 · 2026 Edition
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Inaugural edition 2026 · Asia

Ma Yansong

Architect
MAD Architects

Architecture chinoise organique. 20+ pays.

Profile

Founder of MAD Architects in Beijing, Ma Yansong is one of China's most internationally recognized architects. Trained at Yale and a former member of Zaha Hadid's office, he champions an organic architecture inspired by the landscapes of classical Chinese painting, an approach he calls the Shanshui City. The Absolute Towers near Toronto, the Harbin Opera House and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles bear his fluid signature, now found in some twenty countries through cultural, residential and landscape projects across Asia, Europe and North America.

Why this selection

He exports a vision of the city born in China and grounded in nature and emotion, in a field where influence had long flowed mostly the other way.

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