Professional Documents
Culture Documents
2 THEORETICAL POSITION
River from Manhattan, working with real estate developer tect Louis Sullivan at the beginning of the 20th century.
Louis Dubin.[9]
The notion was rst questioned in Delirious New York,
In October 2008, Rem Koolhaas was invited for a Euro- in his analysis of high-rise architecture in Manhattan.
pean group of the wise under the chairmanship of for- An early design method derived from such thinking was
mer Spanish prime minister Felipe Gonzlez to help 'de- cross-programming, introducing unexpected functions
sign' the future European Union. Other members include in room programmes, such as running tracks in skyscrapNokia chairman Jorma Ollila, former European Commis- ers. More recently, Koolhaas (unsuccessfully) proposed
sioner Mario Monti and former president of Poland Lech the inclusion of hospital units for the homeless into the
Seattle Public Library project (2003).
Wasa.[10][11]
2
2.1
Theoretical position
Delirious New York
Koolhaass book Delirious New York set the pace for his
career. Koolhaas celebrates the chance-like nature of
city life: The City is an addictive machine from which
there is no escape Rem Koolhaas...dened the city as a
collection of red hot spots.[12] (Anna Klingmann). As
Koolhaas himself has acknowledged, this approach had
already been evident in the Japanese Metabolist Movement in the 1960s and early 1970s.
2.2 S,M,L,XL
The next landmark publication by Koolhaas was
S,M,L,XL, together with Bruce Mau, Jennifer Sigler, and
Hans Werlemann (1995),[13] a 1376-page tome combining essays, manifestos, diaries, ction, travelogues, and
meditations on the contemporary city. The layout of
the huge book transformed architectural publishing, and
such booksfull-colour graphics and dense textshave
since become common. Ostensibly, S,M,L,XL gives a
record of the actual implementation of Manhattanism
throughout the various (mostly unrealized) projects
and texts OMA had generated up to that time. The
part lexicon-type layout (with a marginal dictionary
composed by Jennifer Sigler, who also edited the
book) spawned a number of concepts that have become
common in later architectural theory, in particular
Bigness": 'old' architectural principles (composition,
scale, proportion, detail) no longer apply when a building
acquires Bigness. This was demonstrated in OMAs
scheme for the development of "Euralille" (199094), a
new centre for the city of Lille in France, a city returned
to prominence by its position on the new rail route from
Paris to London via the Channel Tunnel. OMA sited
a train station, two centres for commerce and trade, an
urban park, and 'Congrexpo' (a contemporary Grand
Palais with a large concert hall, three auditoria and an
exhibition space). In another essay in the book, titled
The Generic City, Koolhaas declares that progress,
identity, architecture, the city and the street are things of
the past: Relief its over. That is the story of the city.
The city is no longer. We can leave the theatre now...
2.4
OMA
3
as Earths third-biggest city, as well as interviews with
Martha Stewart and Robert Venturi and Denise Scott
Brown.
2.4 OMA
2 THEORETICAL POSITION
During these talks and as an impetus for further discussion, Koolhaas and his think-tank AMO an independent
part of OMA suggested the development of a visual language. This idea inspired a series of drawings and drafts,
including the "Barcode". The barcode seeks to unite the
ags of the EU member countries into a single, colourful symbol. In the current European ag, there is a xed
number of stars. In the barcode however, new Member
States of the EU can be added without space constraints.
Originally, the barcode displayed 15 EU countries. In
2004, the symbol was adapted to include the ten new
Member States.
Since the time of the rst drafts of the barcode it has very
rarely been ocially used by commercial or political institutions. During the Austrian EU Presidency 2006, it
was ocially used for the rst time. The logo was used
for the EU information campaign, but was very negatively
criticized. In addition to the initially uproar caused by the
Estonian ag stripes displayed incorrectly, the proposed
ag failed to achieve its main objective as a symbol. Critics pointed the lack of capability to relate the signied
(the mental concept, the European Union) with the signier (the physical image, the stripes) as the major problem, as well as the presented justication for the order in
which the color stripes were displayed (as every country
in the EU should be regarded as equal in importance and
priority).
2.7
With his Prada projects, Koolhaas ventured into providing architecture for the eeting world of fashion and with
celebrity-studded cachet: not unlike Garniers Opera, the
central space of Koolhaas Beverly Hills Prada store is occupied by a massive central staircase, ostensibly displaying select wares, but mainly the shoppers themselves. The
notion of selling a brand rather than marketing clothes
was further emphasised in the Prada store on Broadway
in New York,[1] which had previously been owned by
the Guggenheim: the museum signs were not removed
during the outtting of the new store, as if emphasizing
the premises as a cultural institution.[18] The Broadway OMA New York: the oce in Manhattan Koolhaas is
5
leading by Shohei Shigematsu is now designing an extension of Cornell University (NY), 111 First Street, a high
rise residential building and hotel in Jersey City (NJ) and
a high end residential tower with CAA screening room at
One Madison Park in NYC.
OMA Beijing: In Asia, Koolhaas was working with his
team on the oces largest project to date, the 575,000
m2 China Central Television Headquarters (CCTV) and
Television Cultural Center (TVCC), both completed in
Beijing in 2008. (However, the TVCC was damaged by
an enormous re in 2009.) Other projects in completion
include the new Shenzhen Stock Exchange and a lush residential tower and residential masterplan in Singapore.
The inuence of OMA has impacted many architecture
students and architects who have worked at the oce during their careers. Architects such as Bjarke Ingels (BIG),
Jeanne Gang (Studio Gang), Amale Andraos and Dan
Wood (WORKac) are just some of the names of the many
architects that have worked in the oce.
Quotes
Noting that architecture can no longer keep up with
the world: The areas of consensus shift unbelievably fast; the bubbles of certainty are constantly exploding. Any architectural project we do takes at
least four or ve years, so increasingly there is a discrepancy between the acceleration of culture and the
continuing slowness of architecture. interview in
Iconey,.[19]
this is not the end. Thats how it felt to me, anyway. That is in itself evidence of a kind of discomfort with achievement measured in terms of identiable entities, and an announcement that continuity
of thinking in whatever form, around whatever subject, is the real ambition. Interview with Jennifer
Sigler in Index Magazine, 2000[21]
4 Awards
Pritzker Prize (2000)
Chevalier de Lgion d'honneur (2001)
Praemium Imperiale (2003)
Royal Gold Medal (2004)
Doctor honoris causa by the Katholieke Universiteit
Leuven (2007)
Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale of Architecture
for lifetime achievement (2010)
5 Selected projects
Reference to the article 'Generic city', a critic to current mode of urbanization: People can inhabit anything. And they can be miserable in anything and
ecstatic in anything. More and more I think that architecture has nothing to do with it. Of course, thats
both liberating and alarming. But the generic city,
the general urban condition, is happening everywhere, and just the fact that it occurs in such enor- McCormick Tribune Campus Center, Chicago, USA
mous quantities must mean that its habitable. Architecture can't do anything that the culture doesn't.
We all complain that we are confronted by urban
environments that are completely similar. We say
we want to create beauty, identity, quality, singularity. And yet, maybe in truth these cities that we
have are desired. Maybe their very characterlessness
provides the best context for living. interview in
Wired 4.07, July 1996[20]
Asked if there is a certain contribution he aspires
to make: Its very simple and it has nothing to do
with identiable goals. It is to keep thinking about
what architecture can be, in whatever form. That is
an answer, isn't it? I think that S,M,L,XL has one
beautiful ambiguity: it used the past to build a fu- Casa da Msica, Porto, Portugal
ture and is very adamant about giving notice that
7 GALLERY
Euralille masterplan and Lille Grand Palais (Lille,
1988)
Netherlands Dance Theater (The Hague, 1988)
Villa dallAva,[22] (Saint-Cloud, 1991)
Nexus Housing (Fukuoka, 1991)
Kunsthal (Rotterdam, 1993)
Educatorium (Utrecht, 19931997)
Maison Bordeaux (fr)[23] (Bordeaux, 1998)
Second Stage Theatre (New York City, 1999)
Guggenheim Hermitage Museum (Las Vegas, 1980,
2002?)
McCormick Tribune Campus Center, IIT (Chicago,
19972003)
Netherlands Embassy Berlin (2003)
6 Bibliography
Project Japan. Metabolism Talks... (2011) (with
Hans Ulrich Obrist)[31] ISBN 978-3-8365-2508-4
Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto of
Manhattan (1978)[32] ISBN 978-1-885254-00-9
S,M,L,XL (1995)[33] ISBN 978-1-885254-86-3
Serpentine Gallery: 24 Hour Interview Marathon
(2007)[34] ISBN 978-1-904563-69-3
Living Vivre Leben (1998)[35]
Content (2004)[36] ISBN 978-3-8228-3070-3
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2006; Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Knig, Kln, Germany 2008
ISBN 978-3-86560-393-7
7 Gallery
McCormick Tribune Campus Center
Rem Koolhaas
Chicago, USA
CCTV Headquarters
Rem Koolhaas (OMA)
Beijing, China
Casa da Msica
Rem Koolhaas
Porto, Portugal
Dutch Embassy
Rem Koolhaas
Berlin, Germany
Seattle Central Library
Rem Koolhaas
Seattle, USA
Kunsthal Rotterdam
Rem Koolhaas (OMA)
Rotterdam, Netherlands
Street toilet
Rem Koolhaas (OMA) and Erwin Olaf
Groningen, Netherlands
Bus stop
Rem Koolhaas (1990)
Groningen, Netherlands
De Rotterdam
Rem Koolhaas (OMA)
Rotterdam, Netherlands
See also
Koolhaas Houselife
References
Index-
[22]
[24] Astudillo, Tey-Marie (27 October 2011) Seouls best museums. Cnngo.com.Retrieved on 20 March 2014.
[7] Becker, Lynn (10 October 2007). Oedipus Rem.. Repeat: Writings on Architecture.
[29] Bryghusprojektet The Brewery Site Project. Bryghusprojektet.dk. Retrieved on 20 March 2014.
Re-
[12] Klingmann, A (2007) Brandscapes: Architecture in the Experience Economy. Mit Press, ISBN 0262515032
[35] Living Vivre Leben. Oce for Metropolitan Architecture. Retrieved 18 May 2008.
[36] Content.
Oce for Metropolitan Architecture.
Archived from the original on 9 April 2008. Retrieved
18 May 2008.
10 External links
Oce for Metropolitan Architecture
OMA ocial Facebook page (updated daily)
OMA ocial Vimeo channel
OMA portfolio on Archello.com
10
Rem Koolhaas at Harvard University
Rem Koolhaas at the Internet Movie Database
Rem Koolhaas lecture at the Canadian Centre for
Architecture: June 8th, 2007
On Starchitecture
Koolhaas at Harvards Ecological Urbanism
Rem Koolhaas: A Kind of Architect (2008 Feature
Documentary)
EXTERNAL LINKS
11
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11.2
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11.3
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