Ma Yansong Quotes

London is one of the most civilised places in the world for the procedure of making architecture and urban design.

There is little in the architecture of a city that is more beautifully designed than a tree.

I love driving around Hancock Park. I think it was designed in the 1920s, and it still has that feel. The streetlamps and trees that line the streets are all the same. It's beautiful and peaceful, and it's right in the middle of L.A.

Buffalo is one of America's great designed cities. The interweaving of great architecture, landscape architecture and important historic sites makes Buffalo a must see destination for preservationists, designers, history buffs, and anyone wishing to see an inspiring example of American design.

In Paris, there has to be a presence. History becomes the most interesting when it's compared to the present. I mean there's a whole group of people that want to build new buildings that look like old buildings.

Suzhou is an ancient city full of old gardens that are very famous in China. It is very beautiful. Plus, I met my boyfriend there!

St. Petersburg is a wonderful city. You have wonderful parks, birds singing in the trees, manatees in the water, pelicans. So it's like this little paradise on Earth.

Stockholm is surely an urban planner's dream. Everything works. Everything looks good.

The skyscraper establishes the block, the block creates the street, the street offers itself to man.

The English truly understand the dynamic between buildings and land.

Cities are about juxtaposition. In Florence, classical buildings sit against medieval buildings. It's that contrast we like. In Bordeaux, we built law courts right next door to what is effectively a listed historic building, and that makes it exciting.

My mother brought me numerous times to visit Orton as a child, and I have visited the gardens with my children many times. Orton is a gem on the Cape Fear River and I am excited about our restoration efforts to bring it back to its original landscape.

Without a shadow of doubt, Trafalgar Square has to be one of the most crap urban public spaces in the world.

Architecture has always been a very idealistic profession. It's about making the world a better place, and it works over the generations because people go on vacation and they look for it.

And then, build a bustling wonderful city of the 21st century, with a restoration of a spectacular skyline, which Manhattan, of course, needs. So, that is really the design as a whole.

My father was into fame and leaving his mark. He was a city planner, sort of a genius in that world, the Robert Moses of Philadelphia. He was on the cover of 'Time' once, and I remember going to his office and seeing, like, two hundred copies, which he would hand out to people.

Only as far as the masters of the world have called in nature to their aid, can they reach the height of magnificence. This is the meaning of their hanging-gardens, villas, garden-houses, islands, parks, and preserves.

Most cities are eclectic. There's a bit of medieval, Georgian, some Victorian and some 20th century. That's fine. Bath is different because it was built within 100 years or less. It has a homogeneity.

Like all things, cities must change - even a city as enamoured of the past and memory as D.C.

Architecture is one of the art forms best able to improve and revitalise cities both artistically and functionally.

I grew up in the old neighborhood of Beijing where you had a courtyard and trees. Actually, the whole of Beijing was a garden - the Forbidden City - and the lakes and gardens in the city center were all artificial.

You can trace the entire history of Britain by looking at gardens.

I grew up in Beijing, and there weren't many modern buildings during my childhood. I was influenced by traditional culture - the courtyards, the hutongs, the old city, and all the art forms - so, very naturally, I brought this to my practice.

Detroit is really the most perfectly laid out city one could imagine, and such an enchanting park and lake, - infinitely better than any town I know in Europe. It ought to be a paradise in about fifty years when it has all matured.

In fact, the public will accept any city plan and skyline provided that its architecture is traditional.