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Koolhaas On Shopping PDF
Koolhaas On Shopping PDF
Koolhaas on shopping
weaknesses of architecture recently the systematic shift from public to
Transatlantic transactions
– to look to domains other than quasi-public that we are witnessing
In this conversation with Rem Koolhaas, architecture to give us tools, without in our own time. How is it that we,
arq probes some of the issues raised by understanding or even having an in this moment of maximum
his research into shopping, the subject interest in those other domains. richness, are unable to support
of his latest book, The Harvard Design public life, even though the
School Guide to Shopping. He argues arq: How has your being at Harvard Romans dedicated 40% of their
that architects have largely ignored this helped your research? cities to public life?
dominant form of urban activity, which
has prohibited us from having an effect Koolhaas: Harvard wants people arq: But aren’t cities starting to devote
on its quality. Maintaining a critical but committed to practice, yet it still more space to public, pedestrian
open-minded position, he offers wants to connect them to the activity?
insights of value to every architect. institution, and they’ve established
what they call ‘professors in Koolhaas: It is astonishing that we
arq: How might your research into practice’. It’s very intelligent tolerate a condition where, for
shopping affect what we do as because it gives the advantage of instance, 42nd Street in New York is
architects? security without the certainty of not surreptiously, but openly taken
staleness. Your practice is supposed away from the public realm and
Koolhaas: It is my hope that our to be energized to the point where given over to private interests, to
investigation into shopping space you remain interested and fresh as copyrighted design. That city
and how it differs from traditional long as you are there. I was initially fundamentally offers an unlimited
space can liberate us as architects. reluctant to be involved in teaching number of choices, from the good
For example, a completely bare and because of the commitment of to the bad, but this creates a
strict architecture might reacquire time, but I eventually recognized situation where that unlimited
interest for us because we would that it was a tremendous condition is reduced and turned
not be faced with this onslaught of opportunity; partly because the into an entirely predictable one.
intentionality that characterizes diverse student body at Harvard In the 1960s and ’70s, some of the
shopping environments. A freedom presents a unique opportunity to most significant thinkers about the
could emanate from our re-looking look at issues of globalization. That city, such as Jane Jacobs or Jacque
at architecture that now seems was a strong incentive. The other Robertson, based on an idealistic
incredibly boring. Too many was if I did only research, with the assessment of the importance of
architects have been simulating an complete absence of any design the street, had a paranoid and
atmosphere of frenzy in their work, teaching, it would give me a double slightly nostalgic sense of duty to
perhaps because of a subconscious life as an architect and as a protect the street. They advocated
sense that anything that is not as researcher. pedestrianization and other
equally frenzied as shopping space specific measures to control
will not seem intentional. arq: How did your research into seemingly inevitable conditions in
shopping begin? the city, such as traffic and
arq: So it’s not the shopping spaces congestion, and they were the first
themselves, but the residual spaces – the Koolhaas: The initial notion was to of what would ultimately turn into
spaces outside of or between shopping have four consecutive projects, a much more ominous army of
environments – that we should pay more each dealing with a different issue, people who take the city away. 42nd
attention to? but ultimately to see what Street reveals the interesting
connections there would be among connection between Disney and
Koolhaas: Exactly. Those residual them. For example, I wanted to pedestrianization, which creates in
spaces present incredible investigate the Roman city, to see the city an anti-urban, anti-modern
opportunities for freedom, how it is possible that the Romans, condition. But thinkers about the
freedom that previously didn’t with so few means, were able to city, from Mumford to Jacobs to
exist. Yet I’m reluctant to apply an sustain cities and civilization in Huxtable, provided all of the
instrumentality to those spaces which so much was public and so formal models and arguments for
because that has been one of the little private, without resorting to this hijacking of urban surface.
arq
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