Nothing is impossible but everything is difficult.

EXHIBITION/M8 in China: Contemporary Chinese Architects Until 1 November, Deutsches Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt, Germany www.dam-online.de

Japan has the highest density of architects in the world, followed by Germany with 1.14 per 1,000 people. Compare this to China's 0.003 architects per 1,000. Add the fact that China's economy is still fast-tracking, despite the world crisis, and that it needs to catch up on decades of unfulfilled dreams--even surpass Western developments--in order to pacify a population with great expectations.

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China's architecture has been in a continual state of metamorphosis since 1980, when the nation's modernisation began. At first, designs and details were still produced in state-run factories, where thousands of professionals were marshalled, military style. Eventually, to compete with foreigners invading their emerging markets, Chinese private architectural practices were finally given legal status in 1994. Qingyun Ma, one of the first of the post-cultural-revolution generation allowed to study and work in the USA, returned to set up his own architecture studio in Shanghai.

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Ma's MADA s.p.a.m. is now the internationally best-known practice of this new breed, with multilingual, multinational, globally networking teams of 25-40 somethings. Nowadays, Ma divides his time between China and the University of Southern California, where he is dean of architecture. The eight most internationally prominent of his followers are Amateur Architecture Studio, Jiakun Architects, TM Studio, Atelier Z+, standardarchitecture, DnA_Design and Architecture, Studio Pei-Zhu, all of whom are included in this exhibition of the work of small firms.

With China's insatiable demand for development, these new young guns have had no trouble notching up villas, arts buildings, museums, university and sports projects, all at breathtaking speed, whipped on by clients who want immediate gratification (regardless of practicalities) and bargain-basement fees. But such quick-fix factors preclude long-term thinking. Xu Tiantian, founder of DnA_Design and Architecture, relates how she was informed of her win in a museum competition--and that it had to be on site in 11 days. 'Unlike in Europe and the USA, nothing is impossible but everything is difficult.' In five years, Tiantian has four major projects to her name.

Market-led architecture, capitalised and individualised, sets a pace only possible with young and hungry architects. Will they still be working such long hours when they reach middle age? Are these conditions even compatible with a private life? Still in their prime, pragmatic, painstaking and idealistic, these Chinese modernists kowtow to no one. Landscape, minimalism and history are all pieces In an architectural mahjong game, with pan tiles salvaged from demolition sites reused on contemporary designs, bamboo roof structures on concrete walls, new bricks recycled from rubble. 'When a client wants an interesting building but has not yet thought up a function, we call it a tea house. They give us more room to experiment.' Standardarchitecture partner Ke Zhang self-confidently continues: 'We're no longer interested in copying big foreign names, or in traditional architecture. We don't think there's Western or Chinese architecture, just contemporary architecture.'

+ The Chinese architectural new breed on a mission

- ... or on the road to meltdown?