Internationally Renowned Architect Ma Yansong delivers a lecture at Ajman University

As part of a four-day workshop beginning 7th October to 10th October, at Ajman University, the internationally-renowned architect Ma Yansong (founder of MAD Architects) delivered a public lecture entitled “City of Water and Mountains.” Mr. Yansong explained his architectural vision and design philosophy which is mostly inspired by nature. He presented several of his realized projects in different countries, as well as many projects under construction. Among the projects he presented are the famous “Absolute Towers” in Canada, Ordos Museum, and Wooden Sculpture Museum in China.

Around 40 architecture students, as well as some professional architects, are participating in this workshop. The theme of this workshop is to design a Land Mark for the city of Ajman. In addition to students from AUST, many students and architects came from other countries, including from Riyadh and Jeddah, KSA, especially to join this workshop. Amongst them were also participants from other universities in UAE.

“This is the ninth in the series of workshops organized by the department of architecture at AUST, as part of the tradition distinguishing AUST among Arab universities in inviting world renowned architects, for the benefit of the students and to expose them to the professional world at the very important stage of their career” explained Dr, Jihad Awad, Head of Architectural Engineering Department at AUST and coordinator of these activities.

Biography:
Ma Yansong, founding principal

Beijing-born architect Ma Yansong is recognized as an important voice in a new generation of architects. Since the founding of MAD in 2004, his works in architecture and art have been widely published and exhibited. He graduated from the Beijing Institute of Civil Engineering and Architecture. Ma attended Yale University after receiving the American Institute of Architects Scholarship for Advanced Architecture Research in 2001 and holds a Masters degree in Architecture from Yale. He has since taught architecture at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing.

Ma Yansong was awarded the 2006 Architecture League Young Architects Award. In 2008 he was selected as one of the twenty most influential Young Architects today by ICON magazine and Fast Company named him one of the ten most creative people in architecture in 2009. In 2010 he became the first architect from China to receive a RIBA fellowship