Dezeen is teaming up with Chinese studio MAD to host a live talk about the future of Beijing with the firm's founder Ma Yansong, architect Peter Cook and the founders of Drawing Architecture Studio.
The talk coincided with the end of Blueprint Beijing, an exhibition curated by Ma and executed by MAD.
Blueprint Beijing formed the architecture component of the Beijing Biennale, and invited 20 architects and artists from around the world to present work themed around the future of Beijing.
Cook and Drawing Architecture Studio were amongst the architects invited to participate, and will present their contributions to the exhibition during the talk.
The conversation was moderated by Dezeen's editor-at-large Amy Frearson, and explored the past, present and future of Beijing's architecture.
Ma founded MAD in 2006 and now leads the studio alongside his partners Dang Qun and Yosuke Hayano.
The firm's projects encompass urban planning, large complexes, municipal buildings, museums, theatres, concert halls, and housing.
Amongst MAD's completed projects are an undulating concrete library in China, a stadium embedded in the ground and covered in grass roofs also in China, and a Passivhaus housing block surrounded by white curved balconies in Paris.
The firm's Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is currently under construction in Los Angeles, and it recently unveiled plans for a feather-like terminal for Changchun airport in China.
British architect Cook currently practices alongside Erlend Blakstad Haffner at Cook Haffner Architecture Platform, the firm that the pair co-founded.
Cook's contribution to Blueprint Beijing comprises an in-depth exploration of two of his drawings, titled Filter City and City as a Room.
Cook is best known for co-founding the avant-garde architecture group Archigram alongside Warren Chalk, Dennis Crompton, David Greene, Ron Herron and Michael Webb in the 1960s.
The group put forward a series of radical proposals including a miniature capsule home and a city-airship hybrid.
Archigram won the Royal Gold Medal in 2002 – despite never having built a building together – in recognition of the influence their conceptual work has had on generations of architects.
Li Han and Hu Yan founded Beijing-based practice Drawing Architecture Studio in 2013. The conceptual practice explores the modern Chinese city through intricate architectural drawings that map, distort and reflect on existing spaces.
The studio's works have been exhibited at events including the 4th Chicago Architecture Biennial, the Chinese and Japanese pavilions at the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale, and the 7th Shenzhen and Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture, amongst others.
Works by Drawing Architecture have been acquired by museums around the world including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and The Art Institute of Chicago.
Partnership content
This talk was produced by Dezeen for MAD as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.