![]() The “Hermitage Project” is not a project: it is a concentration of different issues that can only be resolved successfully by taking a more comprehensive approach – curatorial or intellectual. The Hermitage project cannot be understood in strictly architectural terms in fact, it cannot be understood along any of the classical definitions of a project. Or can a certain amount of inaction – a certain resistance to change – actually be instrumental in maintaining a degree of the authenticity so frequently erased by modernization?Ĭan the architect, a person usually hired to change the conditions he finds, perform more like an archaeologist, scrupulously examining the current conditions, and proposing new forms of organization that allow each element to enjoy renewed value? *Unless otherwise noted, all images © and courtesy OMA.ĭoes every museum in the world need to be modernized?ĭo all museums have to adhere to the same technical conditions?ĭo all museums have to be extended and updated? In recognition of his Golden Lion, ART iT has compiled an archival presentation of Koolhaas’s projects for Venice, in collaboration with OMA*AMO. Surprisingly, Koolhaas did not exhibit at Venice until 2005, when he was included in the Art Biennale, but since then he has been a frequent participant, presenting projects four times in the past five years. Nishizawa’s and Ishigami’s sentiments have been underscored by the honoring of Koolhaas at this year’s 12th Venice Architecture Biennale with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, on the proposal of artistic director Kazuyo Sejima. That experience profoundly affected me at the time.” It was the end of the 1980s and the start of the 1990s, and his architectural works, books and exhibitions all energized us students.” Referring to a visit to the 1995 survey of OMA’s projects at the private exhibition space TN Probe, “OMA in Tokyo: Rem Koolhaas and the Place of Public Architecture,” emerging architect Junya Ishigami told ART iT, “A Koolhaas exhibition is always distinct from those of other architects, communicating a powerful sense of vividness and immediacy. Speaking with ART iT, Ryue Nishizawa said, “Rem influenced me right when I was trying to decide whether to commit to architecture. Japanese architects across several generations cite Koolhaas as a critical inspiration. The impact of this approach has been particularly evident in Japan, despite the fact that OMA has only one built project here, the Nexus World Housing (1991) in Fukuoka, part of a superblock of residences overseen by Arata Isozaki. What both publications and exhibitions make clear is that, rather than attempting to impose an order upon these contradictions, Koolhaas sees them as a terrain for generating new forms of architecture. Often filled with oversized collages combining lurid imagery and polemical, yet pithy texts, exhibitions such as “Content” (Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, 2003 / Kunsthal Rotterdam, 2004), “The Image of Europe” (premiered in Brussels, 2004 / toured Europe) and “OMA in Beijing” (Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2006) function equally as artistic statements and blistering analyses of the contradictions of sense, behavior and structure that inform the everyday environment. ![]() Dedicated to further developing the intellectual life of architecture, in 1998 Koolhaas established as a subsidiary of OMA the think-tank AMO, through which he has continued to carry out research, publishing and exhibition projects.Īnd while trends in both contemporary art and architecture exhibitions continue to converge on the one-off, large-scale installation, Koolhaas’s approach to exhibition making is fully integrated with all other phases of his practice. In this and subsequent publications such as S, M, L, XL (1995), which brought together two decades’ worth of diary entries, essays and architectural plans, he has established himself as a protean thinker and lucid, entertaining writer. Koolhaas first achieved broad international recognition through his book Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan (1978). Co-founder in 1975 of the Rotterdam-based firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), Rem Koolhaas is known not only for producing designs and masterplans of radical innovation, but also for radically innovating contemporary architectural practice through his numerous publications and exhibitions.
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