Rem Koolhaas Biography
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Rem Koolhaas By AmyChristine Lindenau Rem Koolhaas is a Dutch-born architect from Rotterdam, Netherlands. Born in 1944, Koolhaas spent several years of his childhood living abroad in Indonesia, where his father, Anoton Koolhaas, worked as a novelist and served as cultural director. These early experiences clearly influenced Koolhaas, who followed in his father’s footsteps throughout his career. In his early twenties, Koolhaas started out his career as a writer. Working for a local Dutch newspaper, called the Haase Post, Koolhaas eventually became known for his writings on global trends of urbanization and analyses of architecture. Although Koolhaas also tried his hand at writing original screenplays, it was ultimately his theoretical, sociological works that eventually earned him a reputation as a philosophical mind and trailblazer in architecture. After several years working as a writer, Koolhaas began studying architecture at the Architectural Association in London in 1968. While in London, Koolhaas found himself surrounded by peers who felt dissatisfied with the current government and supported largely anti-establishment, deconstructivist philosophies. Having studied similar movements that had led to changes in the Ecole Des Beaux Arts generations earlier, Koolhaas and his classmates represented a cohort infatuated with the relationships between various societal classes as well as architecture’s role in creating and/or perpetuating uncomfortable economic and societal divisions. In 1972, Koolhaas moved to the United States to continue his education in architecture, ultimately graduating from Cornell University in 1975. Fresh out of school, Koolhaas dove into his career establishing a firm with a few core members. The team that founded the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) included Elia and Zoe Zenghelis and Koolhaas’ then wife, Madelon Vriesendorp. Koolhaas’ wife of the time, Vriesendorp, is a renowned artist and designer in her own right with experience restoring painted frescoes in historic buildings, designing clothing, jewelry, stage costumes, and books. The paintings Vriesendorp produced during her time working with OMA were sometimes used as book and magazine covers, including the masterpiece used as the cover of Koolhaas’s book, Delirious New York. Since founding the OMA together, Koolhaas and Vriesendorp ended their marriage, and Koolhaas later remarried Petra Blaisse, an interior and landscape designer. In 1975, the OMA opened its first offices with one located in Rotterdam and another in London. At this point in time, Koolhaas remained largely unknown as a designer and architect despite contributing to small projects. Instead, Koolhaas’ name began popping up as a revered author, known for his 1978 publication called Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan. In this book, Koolhaas suggests that architectural developments in Manhattan have been (and may continue to be) guided by cultural shifts in society, exemplifying a clear and meaningful link connecting the fields of sociology and architecture. His theories of how architecture influences society (as well as the reciprocal relationship) introduced new ideals to architecture that have led many to regard Koolhaas as a humanist. Working with the OMA, Koolhaas constructed a great number of modern, urbanistic buildings that serve society today and designed an even greater number of concepts that never truly came to fruition. According to Koolhaas in an interview, it is his dirty secret that only an approximate 5% of his design concepts have ever been built. He claims no other industry or profession could allow for such low statistics on follow-through. However, Koolhaas’ lack of produced designs may be in part due to his process, which emphasizes critical thinking of the building’s role in the wider context of an urban area and society. One of the great accomplishments Koolhaas designed and executed with the OMA is the completion of the National Danc Theatre at the Hague. This theatre has a notably wavy and whimsical roof visible from the exterior and a high level of division within the interior to provide sufficient privacy in the backstage dressing rooms. Koolhaas’ design for the National Dance Theatre at the Hague has been mentioned in his Pritzker Prize and won the architect acclaim early on in his career. While working with the OMA, Koolhaas had opportunities to work on large-scale and well-known projects, but it took some time before he developed his own personal aesthetic and style. His early architectural works, such as the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, the Educatorium in the Netherlands, and the Nexus Housing project in Fukuoka, Japan, are not truly representative of the signature aesthetic he developed later on, and are relatively inconsistent examples of his application of the elements and principles of design. Instead, each of Koolhaas’ early projects were tailored to fit the unique needs of his clients. This strategy to design is what Koolhaas has publicly called an ‘end to sentimentality’. Rather than referring to past works and trying to replicate designs that have been tried and known to work, Koolhaas believes architects and designers should avoid falling victim to sentimentality by focusing on each project as an individual challenge with a unique solution. And so, early works from Koolhaas can be identified less by a signature style or use of architectural elements and principles and more so by the underlying philosophy of providing clients with improved ways of interacting with a modernizing and changing world. With some years of experience under his belt, Koolhaas became more comfortable identifying himself as a deconstructivist with an interest in asymmetrical designs and unexpected use of color. Although Koolhaas may subscribe to the deconstructivist school of thought on a broad level, his architecture actually focuses less on theory and more on how architecture affects humanity on a day-to-day basis. It wasn’ until late in his career that Koolhaas’ began developing a unique personal aesthetic and style to his architecture but when he did, he began combining the best of cutting edge technology and aesthetic. Buildings he designed not only sought to fit into a modernizing urban landscape but also attempted to make use of unusual forms and spatial organization that were unexpected and sometimes nearly illusory. Koolhaas’s dedication to creating a more livable modern environment led him to participate in city planning projects such as his concept for the construction of a new city center in France. The concept involved an elliptical center, called the Grand Palais, which was made of plastic and aluminum. Works like this coupled with Koolhaas’ writing on theories of urbanization in his second book, S, M, L, XL, helped make the OMA a household name and the company received numerous commissions for new projects. As a result of this new publicity, the OMA became involved in creating international stores for Prada, designed the Netherlands Embassy in Berlin, the student center for the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, the Seattle Washington Public Library and other impactful architectural projects. Decades after first forming the OMA, Koolhaas added a branch called the AMO, a portion of the firm dedicated to research and development. The OMA continued to function as the primary driving force of implementing designs, but creation of the AMO has allowed Koolhaas to study the interrelationship between architecture and segments of society such as fashion, technology, art, media, politics, and more. Understanding the ways his buildings would likely be used by average humans was an important part of Koolhaas’ design process and philosophy because this knowledge allowed him to design buildings that could truly impact and enhance urban lifestyles. Starting in 1995, Koolhaas began sharing his knowledge by teaching as a professor of architecture at Harvard University. As a professor, Koolhaas went on to publish Mutations, The Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping, and The Great Leap Forward. Each of these published books featured writings from his students about ‘non-cities’, such as Lagos in Nigeria, that appear to function well despite lacking infrastructure by Western standards. The analyses attempt to uncover the true meaning of urbanization--which may be globalization and consumerism. In 2005, Koolhaas, working with contemporaries Mark Wigley and Ole Bouman, founded Volume Magazine, a think tank devoted to understanding how spaces affect society and how society shapes architecture. This magazine strives to consider cutting edge ideas by reporting on potential developments in architecture in hopes of sparking a broader dialogue and sense of action. Koolhaas has also collaborated with his contemporaries on several architectural projects, including teaming up with Zaha Hadid, a student of his, to create a design to enlarge the Parliamentary buildings of the Hague. Perhaps one of Koolhaas’ most well-known and celebrated buildings is the Chinese Central Television Headquarters Building in Beijing, China, which is home to the Chinese equivalent of the NASDAQ called the Shenzen Stock Exchange. In order to avoid symbolizing government and establishment success with a traditional skyscraper form, Koolhaas opted to use a horizontal skyscraper for the Shenzen Stock Exchange. The building contains a series of connected volumes allowing communication between departments but also creating a route for the public to walk along without