Effortlessly stylish in a simple black shirt and jeans, Ma Yansong sits cradling a cup of tea with a pack of flu medicine nearby. He has just returned to his office, in the heart of a complex of thin ancient alleyways in Beijing, from a work trip to France, and looks tired; like someone who simply doesn't have enough hours in the day to accomplish all the things he would like to.
The 36-year-old, Yale University-educated architect is increasingly being seen as a rising star. Potentially, he is on his way to becoming China's first 'starchitect'. He was the first mainland architect to win an international commission: the Absolute Towers in Canada, which came just three years after he graduated from architecture school and two years after he launched his own, Beijing-based firm, MAD Architects.
'I always wanted to work for myself, so I registered my office straight after graduation,' Ma says. 'I was in London [working for Zaha Hadid Architects] for a short time - a couple of competitions [for building commissions], less than one year - and by 2004 I had returned to China to begin entering competitions myself.
'When I decided to come back it wasn't already clear there was a construction boom here,' he explains. 'I just wanted to come back because I was born here and this is my home.'
Ma didn't take it too seriously in the beginning. 'Entering architecture competitions was very easy, it was just like being in architecture school,' he says. MAD entered more than 100 such contests in its first year or so, gaining valuable experience but no major commissions.
Then, in 2005, MAD won one: a commission to build skyscrapers in Toronto. This was big news in the mainland, at a time when the country had no big-name architects and was allowing foreign firms to head the design of all the major arenas being built for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. The first building soon earned the nickname 'the Marilyn Monroe' for its aesthetically pleasing curves. The Absolute Towers - scheduled to be completed this year - catapulted MAD Architects and Ma onto the international scene.