Rem Koolhaas is a Dutch architect and urban planner renowned for his innovative designs. He was born in Rotterdam on November 17, 1944. He has been classified as a modernist, deconstructivist or structuralist, but some analysts maintain that his work is close to humanism, a trend that implies the search for a link between technology and people.
Following in his father’s footsteps, Rem Koolhaas as a young man was inclined towards a career as a writer. He was a journalist for the Haase Post in The Hague and later tried to write movie scripts.
Rem Koolhaas’s texts on architecture made him known before he had designed any buildings. After graduating from the Architecture Association School in London in 1972, Rem Koolhaas was awarded a research fellowship in the United States. During this time he wrote the book Delirious New York , which he described as a ” retroactive manifesto for Manhattan ” and which critics consider a classic text on architecture and modern society.
Rem Koolhaas founded the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in London in 1975, together with Madelon Vriesendorm and Zoe Zenghelis. Focusing on contemporary design, the firm won a competition for an extension to Parliament in The Hague and a major contract to develop a master plan for a residential neighborhood in Amsterdam. The firm’s early works included the Netherlands Dance Theatre, also in The Hague, in 1987, and Nexus Housing in Fukuoka, Japan, and the Kunsthal, a museum built in Rotterdam in 1992.
Delirious New York was reprinted in 1994 under the title Rem Koolhaas and the Place of Modern Architecture . That same year, Rem Koolhaas published S, M, L, XL in collaboration with Canadian graphic designer Bruce Mau. Described as a novel about architecture, the book combines works produced by Rem Koolhaas’ architecture studio with photographs, plans, fiction, and cartoons. The Euralille master plan and the grand palace of Lille, on the French side of the Channel Tunnel, were also completed in 1994. Rem Koolhaas also contributed to the design of the Educatorium at Utrecht University.
At the age of 50, Rem Koolhaas won the Pritzker Prize. The jury that awarded him the prize described him as ” that rare combination of visionary and implementer, philosopher and pragmatist, theorist and prophet .” From that moment on, the works of Rem Koolhaas were almost a symbol. Notable designs include the Netherlands Embassy in Berlin in 2001, the Seattle Public Library (presentation image for this article), the CCTV Building in Beijing, China in 2008, the Dee and Charles Wyly Theater in Dallas in 2009, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, China in 2013, the Alexis de Tocqueville Library in Caen in 2016, and the Concrete Building on Alserkal Avenue in Dubai in 2017.
Decades after founding OMA, Rem Koolhaas formed AMO, a mirror reflection of his research-oriented architecture studio. The OMA remains dedicated to building construction and master planning, while the AMO works in areas beyond the traditional boundaries of architecture, including media, politics, sociology, renewable energy, technology , fashion, traditional medicine and graphic design.
Rem Koolhaas is recognized for his pragmatic approach to design. The McCormick Tribune Campus Center in Chicago, built in 2003, is an example, although it is not the first project with these characteristics. Frank Gehry’s 2000 Experimental Music Project (EMP) in Seattle also has a monorail that runs directly through the museum. However, Rem Koolhaas’ tube (made of corrugated stainless steel) is more practical. The City Rail connects Chicago to the campus designed by Mies van der Rohe in the 1940s. Rem Koolhaas was not only thinking about urban theory with exterior design, but before designing the interior he set out to document the behavior patterns of students to create pathways and practical spaces within the campus.
But this was not the first time that Rem Koolhaas had “played” with trains. His master plan for Euralille, built between 1989 and 1994, transformed the city of Lille in France into a tourist destination. Rem Koolhaas took advantage of the construction of the tunnel that crosses under the English Channel as an opportunity to redesign the city. Most of the new buildings in the Euralille project were designed by French architects, except for the Congrexpo, which was designed by Rem Koolhaas himself. The Congrexpo is a simple building, defined by the architect as follows: «… it is not a building that defines a clear architectural identity, but rather a building that creates and unleashes potential, almost in an urban sense ».
Rem Koolhaas designed the China Central Television headquarters in Beijing in 2008. The 51-story structure looks like a huge robot, characterized by the New York Times as possibly the largest piece of architecture built this century. These designs, like that of the Seattle Public Library, are hard to pigeonhole. The library seems to be composed of abstract, dissonant, unrelated shapes, without visual logic. However, the fluid layout of the rooms is designed precisely on the basis of functionality.
What is the response to structures with glass floors or zigzag, erratic stairs, or shimmering translucent walls? Is it that Rem Koolhaas has ignored the aesthetics and the needs of the people who have to occupy those buildings? Rather, he is using technology to show better ways of life. According to the Pritzker Prize jury, Rem Koolhaas’s work is as much about ideas as it is about buildings. In fact, he became famous for his texts and social commentary before any of his designs were built.
And some of his most renowned designs remain on the drawing board. Rem Koolhaas has acknowledged that only 5% of his designs are built. ” That’s our dirty secret ,” he acknowledged to the Der Spiegel newspaper. « Most of our work for tenders and invitations to bids disappears. No other profession would accept such conditions. But these designs cannot be considered as waste. They are ideas, they will survive in books.
Sources
J. Carter Brown, Giovanni Agnelli, Ada Louise Huxtable, Jorge Silvetti, Lord Rothschild; Juri. The Pritzker Architecture Prize to Rem Koolhaas . Accessed December 2021.
Nicolai Ouroussoff. Koolhaas, Delirious in Beijing. The New York Times , July 11, 2011.
Philipp Oehmke and Tobias Rapp. Interview with Star Architect Rem Koolhaas . Spiegel Online , Der Spiegel, December 16, 2011.
Rem Koolhaas. OMA Publications . Accessed December 2021.
