MAD Dinner
by MAD.exe office (Ma Yansong, Yosuke Hayano, Dang Qun); edited by Brendan McGetrick, Chen ShuYu
Actar Publishers, July 2008

Paperback | 8 x 9-1/2 inches | 520 pages | English/Chinese | ISBN: 9788496954212 | $49.95

PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION:
MAD DINNER is the first book by MAD office, Beijing-based architectural office. Organized around the metaphor of dinner table conversation, the book is a collection of ideas and opinions about topics ranging from politics to ecology to fame to the future. The dinner?s ?guests? include people from all levels of Chinese society: a government official, hairdresser, migrant laborers, a doctor, a taxi driver, and a developer are all brought together to offer their views in an atmosphere of openness and exchange. MAD?s work is embedded in a series of extended conversations with international advisors, including the Swiss curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, British writer Ian Buruma, filmmakers Zhang Yimou and Jia Zhangke, and the artist Ai Weiwei. The conversations work in tandem with MAD?s proposals to reveal their essential account of the architect?s practice and experience inside of China, the fastest urbanization in world history. REFERRAL LINKS:
  

dDAB COMMENTARY:
On Tuesday, November 30, Beijing's MAD Architects released its latest monograph. Titled MAD Rhapsody, the coffee table book presents nearly two-dozen completed and in-progress projects, starting with Absolute Towers, the curvaceous, nearly twin towers built ...