Winy Maas

Founding Partner, Mvrdv

Search every verified Winy Maas interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Winy Maas, founding partner of MVRDV, gave a talk titled "The Art of Coincidence" in July 2026 as part of the Architects, Not Architecture series in Barcelona. During the talk, he discussed his personal and professional influences, describing his education at Delft and his early exposure to figures such as Aldo van Eyck and Rem Koolhaas. He reflected on the role of ugliness in his work, stating that "people that come from Amsterdam are normally spoiled because of the beauty" and that "ugliness is very double because you want to escape and other hand it creates a lot of liberty." He also said that "working with students is one act of optimism" and described his "spatial mission" as uniting people "by difference." In a November 2025 episode of the Super Urban Podcast, Maas discussed the expansion of architecture and urbanism into systems of data, ecology, and infrastructure. He said he was "annoyed about the kind of introspection that architects have" and argued that urbanism involves understanding what a building's position "does to the wider world." He also addressed planetary density and climate, noting that "it becomes a bit busy on this tiny planet" and that "the climatic issue becomes so too hot," suggesting that using the sky or other measures could be considered.