MADA s.pa.m., Shanghai and Xi' an

Architectural Review, The, July, 2008

As the principle of an 80-person practice with offices in Shanghai and Xi' an and Dean of Architecture at the University of Southern California (USC), Ma Qingyun is equally at home in East and West, and his work draws on both cultures. He grew up in the ancient imperial capital of Xi'an, graduated from T singhua University in Beijing, and the University of Pennsylvania, before going to work for Kohn Pederson Fox in NewYork. 'After ten years in the US, I felt my creativity was being stifled and I wanted to practise architecture hands-on,' he recalls. Shanghai was then much livelier and more cosmopolitan than Beijing, so he moved there and established MADA s.p.a.m. in 1999. The initials stand for Ma Designers and Architects; strategy, planning, architecture and media-which expresses the scope of the firm's activities. "In China you can do a lot of things under one roof.' says Ma, and we design books, do advertising and offer consulting services. Making buildings, as the physical manifesation of an idea, is only one aspect of our work.'

MADA is notable for the eclecticism of its projects-large and small, urban and rural, commercial and private. In Qingpu, a burgeoning statellite of Shanghai that was once an old canal town, MADA has made a series of interventions. The most ambitious of these was Thumb Island, an undulating concrete strucuture with a landscaped roof that ripples quit into a lake. It was designed to serve as a community center and park but, as so often happens in China, the quality of construction and pattern of use fell far short of expeation. The public library feels under-used, a large entertainment center shows little respect for the architecture and the park is severed from its users.

Another urban intervention in Qingpu is much more successful. A folded concreted canopy leads into a walkway that is wrapped around the Winding Water Garden, and MADA's Edge Park bridges the traditional temple garden and the bustling street. Beyond. is a shopping mall in which two-storey structures clad with timber grilles and a large retail space with folded glass planes define an urban plaza and pick up on the language of the adjoining warehouses. Fifteen minutes away in the neighbouring town of Zhujajiao, which also ratains its old canals, the architects have created a new administrative quarter. Layered wood grilles and patterned brick reduce the apparent bulk of large office buildings, and strengthen the sense of place, and a ploygonal wood-clad cludhouse provides a point of focus.

In Xi'an, MADA are completing Media City, a complex of offices and studios for the regional broadcasting services and a commerical hub for a new ex-urban development. Glass cascades down between warped walls of poured concrete that are clad in metal and stone to conceal the imperfections of their construction. Axial glass-roofed concourses extend through the buidings, affording glimpses of prodcution activities, and public facilities will include a basement supermarket, a large auditorium above, and a shopping street down one side. Media City is located on the site of the Tang Dynasty wall, far beyond the present quarilateral of city fortifications.

In contrast to this urban monument, Na built a much-acclaimed house for his father and a guesthouse for friends on the family's ancestral property in the Lantian district, an hour's drive away. There, the architect was able to express the intensity of his personal vision and control every detail of the construction. The father's house has the verticality and respective bays of a traditional temple, though it may remind a Westerner of the modular geometry of Le Corbusier's early villas. Its courtyard plan, high walls clad in river rocks, and bamboo shutters all speak to the vernacular tradition. The guesthouse is a more explicit homage to the past with its gabled facade, patterned grey brick walls and work tracery over windows that face into a linear courtytard. Jade stone walls add a sensuous element to this austere Zen retreat.

'I got discouraged practice in China,' says Ma. 'Society has not invested enough in creative, innovative thinking, Frustrated by the struggle to realise his vision and the loss of control over construction, he took the teaching job at USC. Though this provided another challenge and allowed him to stay in touch with his practice, he soon came to realise that a city once known for defying the rules has become timid and fearful of change. It's likely that Ma will return home to master the rough and tumble of China. There he can draw on his experience to advance the cause of good architecture and help forge a language that is modern but no unduly dependent on Western models.

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