Rem Koolhaas

From Free net encyclopedia

Image:Koolhaas.seattle.lib.1.jpg

Rem Koolhaas (born november 17 1944 in Rotterdam, Netherlands) is a Dutch architect, former journalist and screenwriter who studied architecture at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. He is the principal of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, or OMA, and of its research-oriented counterpart AMO. He is also "Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design" at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design.

Perhaps better known for his books than his buildings, he has authored several seminal works in architectural theory, including Delirious New York, and S,M,L,XL, a collaboration with the graphic designer Bruce Mau published in 1995. Koolhaas' work emphatically embraces the contradictions of a discipline that struggles to maintain its humanist ideals of material honesty, the human scale and carefully crafted meaning in a rapidly globalising world that espouses material economy, machine scale and random meaning. In 2003 content, a cheap, magazine-style book was published, giving an overview of the last decade of OMA projects, endeavours and new trends and global developments. Image:Koolhaas.cctv.jpg Using a canny direction of observation and diagram, Koolhaas mobilizes the omnipotent forces of urbanism into unprecedented forms and connections organised along the lines of present day society. Shopping is examined for intellectual comfort whilst the unregulated taste and densification of Chinese cities is analysed according to "performance", a criterion involving variables with debatable credibility - density, newness, shape, size, money etc. Through his ruthlessly raw approach, Koolhaas hopes to extract the architect from the anxiety of a dead profession and resurrect a contemporary sublime however fleeting it may be. Image:CasadaMusica.jpg

1 Prizes
2 Architecture & Fashion
3 Quotes
4 List of projects
- 4.1 European Flag Proposal
5 External links

[edit]

Prizes

In 2000, he won the Pritzker Architecture Prize. In 2003 he was awarded the Praemium Imperiale and in 2004 the RIBA Gold Medal.

[edit]

Architecture & Fashion

With his Prada projects, Koolhaas has ventured into the realms of infusing architecture with the fleeting world of fashion and with celebrity-studded cachet: not unlike Garnier's Opera, the central space of Koolhaas' Beverly Hills Prada store is occupied by a massive central staircase, ostenibly displaying select wares, but mainly the shoppers themselves. At the opening party for the flagship store, Koolhaas may not have been as sought after by the Hollywood press corps as Paris Hilton or Nicole Richie, but was easily recognized by the cognoscenti. Image:PDRM0102.JPG

[edit]

Quotes

"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, that's both liberating and alarming. But the generic city, the general urban condition, is happening everywhere, and just the fact that it occurs in such enormous quantities must mean that it's 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 Magazine 4.07, July 1996 [1]

Asked if there is a certain contribution he aspires to make: "It's very simple and it has nothing to do with identifiable 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 future and is very adamant about giving notice that this is not the end. That's how it felt to me, anyway. That is in itself evidence of a kind of discomfort with achievement measured in terms of identifiable entities, and an announcement that continuity of thinking in whatever form, around whatever subject, is the real ambition." —interview in Index Magazine, 2000 [2]

[edit]

List of projects

Koolhaas's projects include:

Kunsthal, (Rotterdam, 1993)
Euralille (Lille, 1988)
Netherlands Dance Theater (The Hague, 1988)
"MAISON À BORDEAUX" (France)
Educatorium, (Utrecht, 1993-1997)
Netherlands Embassy (Berlin, 2003)
Guggenheim Museum, (Las Vegas, 2002)
Nexus Housing (Fukuoka, Japan)
Retail design for Prada stores (New York 2003, Los Angeles 2004)
McCormick Tribune Campus Center, (IIT Chicago, Illinois, 1997-2003)
Seattle Central Library (2004)
Casa da Música (Oporto, 2005)
CCTV HQ, Beijing (Construction Commencing 2004)
Milstein Hall, Cornell (Planning to begin soon)

[edit]

European Flag Proposal

Image:European Presidency Austria 2006.png Following the signing of Treaties of Nice in May 2001, which made Brussels the official capital of Europe, the then President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi and the Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt invited Koolhaas to discuss the necessities and requirements of a European capital.

During these talks and as an impetus for further discussion, Koolhaas and his think-tank 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 flags of the EU member countries into a single, colourful symbol.

In the current European flag, there is a fixed 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 first drafts of the barcode it has never been officially used by commercial or political institutions. During the Austrian EU Presidency 2006 it was officially used for the first time. The logo has already been used for the EU information campaign which will also be continued during the Austrian EU Presidency. There was initially some uproar caused, as the stripes of the flag of Estonia were displayed incorrectly.

[edit]