Department of Architecture & Interior design

ARC 363 – Theory II

Instructor – Prof. Karim Fakhry

Rem Koolhaas

Tara Salibi - Ibrahim Ballout

Four secions will divide the structure of
exploraion of this presentaion

- The Architect
- The Theory
- The Wriings
- The Projects: Theory in Pracice
The Architect
Rem Koolhaas
 - Rem was born in 1944 in Roterdam
- He lived in Indonesia between 1952 and
1956
- Rem’s first educaion was in script wriing at
the Netherlands Film and Television Acade-
my in Amsterdam, not in architecture.
- In 1968, Koolhaas began his educaion in
architecture at the Architectural Associaion
School of Architecture, in London.
- Ater graduaing, he furthered his educaion
at Cornell University.

“It was a very important age for me, I really

lived as an Asian.”

PROFILE
 - A scholarship obtained in 1972 allowed him
to stay in the United States, where, fascinat-
ed by New York, he started to analyse the
impact of metropolitan culture on architec-
ture and published Delirious New York, a ret-
roacive manifesto for Manhatan.

- Rem Koolhaas wanted to progress from

theory to pracical applicaion and decided to
return to Europe

- In London in 1975, he created, with Elia and

Zoe Zenghelis and Madelon Vriesendorp, the
Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA),
whose objecives were the definiion of new
types of relaions —theoreical as well as
pracical— between architecture and the con-
temporary cultural situaion.

PROFILE
The Theory
Rem Koolhaas
Rem Koolhaas had never a fixed methodology of work. He
has many projects that follow similar guidelines yet many
of his works feel like they belong to different architects.

Koolhaas, being a journalist in the beginning, had impres-

sive wriing skills and was able to express himself beter
and more comfortably in words.
He was a conceptual thinker so he published many books
and theories yet they were always words on paper. This
leads to his most celebrated works being merely on
paper. This wriing phase showcased his thoughts and ten-
dencies.

Koolhaas focused mainly on the concept. He took the con-

cept, developed it by itself, and made the building work
as a means to an end, which was realizing his concept.

He altered the building to fit the concept which some

may perceive as an unconvenional way to design.
The Wriings
Rem Koolhaas
 Delirious New York
Rem Koolhaas's 'Retroacive Manifesto for Manhatan' posits New York
as the arena for the terminal stage of Western civilisaion. Through the
simultaneous explosion of human density and invasion of new technolo-
gies, Manhatan became, from 1850 on, a mythical laboratory for the
invenion and tesing of a revoluionary lifestyle: the Culture of Conges-
ion.

S,M,L,XL
A mammoth compendium of 20 years of OMA's projects, arranged in
order of size, this book gives an insight into the restless, ingenuiive
thinking of the office through an era when architecture became a mere
bystander to the explosion of the market economy and globalizaion.

Project on the city

A study by OMA and the Harvard Graduate School of Design on the Pearl
River Delta, an area of China undergoing a maelstrom of modernizaion
and set to become a megalopolis of 36 million inhabitants by 2020.
The Projects
Rem Koolhaas
 Maison a Bordeaux McCormick Tribune

2003
1998
France Campus Center
Illinois
Kunsthal

1993
Roterdam
Seatle Public

2004
1988
Euralille
Lille
Library
Seatle

Educatorium

1997
CCTV

2012
Utrecht
Beijing
Netherlands
Dutch Embassy
Dance Theatre Casa da Musica

2003

2005
1988

Berlin
The Hague Oporto
Prada Stores

2004
Los Angeles

TIMELINE OF MAJOR PROJECTS

Euralille
 Netherlands
Dance Theatre
Kunsthal
Maison a Bordeaux
Educatorium
McCormick Tribune Campus Center
 Dutch
Embassy
Prada Store
Seatle Public Library
Casa da Musica
CCTV
Koolhaas was into the funcional theme. Simply he went for prioriizing funcionality, follow-
ing funcions that are spaially dynamic. Like the Maison Bordeaux which he created for a
family and the father in paralyzed waist down.

The design in very complex and it is perplexing that the elements seem to have no connecion
with each other but he masked a system that revolved around the purpose of it being func-
ional and user friendly for the man and for him to circulate as easily as possible in his home
in his wheelchair. For that he used a central elevator and hydraulic systems serving as media-
tors between the spaces.
, Koolhaas was concerned with social issues. We noice social tendencies and influences in
some of his works. He highlighted relaions between people and spaces and people between
themselves. This is shown when we zoom in on the CCTV project in China where the concept
behind it is to break down the “ghetoes” and by creaing interior spaces that enhance (in
three dimension) producivity and interacion between the users of the project such as the
creaive people, the producers, the technicians, and the administrators thus resuling in
higher economical performance and efficiency. Also CCTV defies the scale of the city acing
as a landmark and giving a birds eye view to the city from the connecion created on top link-
ing the two towers. So he is manifesing social phenomena in his architecture.
Basically Koolhass has shown not to belong to a specific school of thought. Different people
classified him into different categories. But mainly we can relate him to 3 schools which are
the funcionalist, the idealist, and the deconsctrucivist.
teaching posiions

1975 Insitute for Architecture and Urban Studies, New York, USA
University of California, Los Angeles School of Architecture, USA
1976 Architectural Associaion, London, UK
1988 Technical University, Delt, Netherlands
1990 Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusets, USA
1991 Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA

awards/honours

1974 Progressive Architecture Award (with Laurinda Spear)

1991 Le Moniteur, Prix d’Architecture, for Villa dall’Ava, Paris, France
1992 The Architectural Insitute of Japan, Best building in Japan 1991,
for Nexus World Housing in Fukuoka, Japan
Antonio Gaudi Prize for Lille Urbanism Project
1993 Visiing Scholar, The Gety Centre, Los Angeles, California, USA
1997 American Insitute of Architecture (AIA), Book Award for S, M, L, XL