appear to be the case. ata wall—it’s like acellar window, doubt he’s some executive type from MEGALOMANIA ‘we see the ground outside the Metropolis isel. ‘Architecture isa very bizarre profes- Castle illuminated by some kind of MIDAS sion in the sense that itis a poiso- oil lamp or flare near there — just Our intention could be synthesized nous mixture of omnipotence and the ditch along the cellar stove — 1s how to tum all that garbage of the impotence. Itis obviously true that _—_thousands of slithering little garter _present system to your advantage. ‘our dreams and fantasies are mega- snakes are tumbling in a shining A kind of democratic King Midas: Jomaniac, and we are doomed to ‘mess in the half grass half sand of tty to find the concept through which wait passively for occasions where the cellar ditch, Horrible! the worthless tums into something, wwe can realize fragments of that MESSAGES where even the sublime is not ‘megalomania Twatched the cars approaching us, unthinkable, MELT unable to grasp more than a fra MILESTONE. ‘To be modern... is to experience of the thousands of messages which The police station was a low point personal and social life as a mael- their wheels and headlamps, wind- in our practice. Itshowed OMA's, irom, to find one’s world and one-_ shields and radiator grilles were weakness, professionally in that we self in perpetual disintegration and flashing at me. proxluced a building that was forty renewal, trouble and anguish, ambi- MESSY percent t00 expensive to realize, and guity and contradiction: to be part of It's messy because I'm cleaning up. _then had to be shrunken or redes- ‘universe in which all that is solid METAPHOR igned. And it shows. I wouldn't call melts into air. To be modernist isto It’s gradually dawning that a brain jtan embarrassment, but maybe make oneself somehow at home in _shaped building or some notion Rem would —because of the fact the maelstrom, to make its rhythms of the ego doesn't, on its own, make that I didn’t see iton the list of proj- ‘one’s own, to move within its cur- amental asylum proposal more ects he wanted to publish in the rents in scarch of the forms of reali- satisfying. book. But it has an important place {y, of beauty, of freedom, of justice, METAPHORS in OMA’s personal history —it’s that its fervid and perilous flow Metaphors are tansformations of actually a milestone because that's allows. aan actual event into a figurative how you learn the art of building. MEMO expression, evoking images by sub- MIMESIS ‘TO: Entire Office stituting an abstract notion for No, no. Of course not. There is no FROM: Rem Koolhaas something more descriptive and overall order. But at the same time, DATE: 10 July 1991 illustrative. Itusually is an implicit __T disagree with the dominant con- (On Monday 15 July Phyllis Lambert comparison between two entities clusion of a broad spectrum of will visit the office. which ate not alike but can be com- contemporaries —especially the (When she was 23 she convinced pared in an imaginative way. The Japanese — who propose that archi- hher dad to ask Mies 10 do the comparison is mostly done through _tecture by definition has to be Seagram for him.) ‘creative leap that ties different chaotic. The ukimate justification Please clean and prepare for presen- objects together, producing a new ‘or argument of this position has tation ‘entity in which the characteristics of been that of analogy: you are in & PLEASE PREPARE SLIDES both take part ‘mess, we are in a mess, you are FUKUOKA METROPOLIS ‘unstructured, we are unstructured, N.B. PLEASE REMOVE ALL In the geography of advanced forms —_youare vulgar, we are vulgar, you ‘TRACES OF ASHIHIN 11111 of capitalism, metropolis equals are chaotic, we are chaotic... 'am MEMORY world. ‘beginning to think that ths is a mis- ‘You have 4095 KBytes of extended) METROPOLITAN? take: there is right now an exciting expanded memory available. OMA produces an architecture that potential for an architecture that, AutoCAD needs 64512 additional ‘embraces aspects of the maligned resists this mimesis. bytes of regularmemory (RAM) to metropolitan condition with enthusi- MINUTE use the last 4032 KBytes of this, asm, and which restores mythical, Twas just as clever as Jacques was. extended/expanded memory to make symbolic, literary, oneiric, critical, He didnt have to tell me either. That more RAM available. For extended) and popular functions to large urban nasty dry taste was back in my expanded memory bookkeeping, centers. An architecture which throat and mouth again. I'd a minute remove some memory resident pro- accommodates and supports the lefi, no more, and then it would be grams, or specify a sinall value fora particular forms of social inter- too late CAD free RAM—(in autoexec.bat) course, characteristics of metropol-_ MISUNDERSTANDING —or for buffers —or files — itan densities, an architecture that ‘This isn’t a lemonade stand. This is (in config. system), hhouses in the most positive way the a psychiatric booth, MEN Culture of Congestion. MOBIUS STRIP? ‘What are men to rocks and METROPOLITAN? Take an ordinary flat strip of paper. mountains? don’t know if they're our type, Give ita half-twist. Now Seoteh: Mess Martha! They seem like pretty pow- tape the two ends together to form “Look” says Doctor Sax pointing erful folks! In fact—I wouldn't loop. Okay, ready? Take a red 926