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Rem Koolhaas on the Smart Landscape and Intelligent Architecture
Rem Koolhaas, founding partner of OMA. Credit: Wikipedia
Architecture has entered into a new engagement with digital culture and capital—which amounts to the most radical change within the discipline since the confluence of modernism and industrial production in the early twentieth century. Yet this shift has gone largely unnoticed, because it has not taken the form of a visible upheaval or wholesale transformation. To the contrary: It is a stealthy infiltration of architecture via its constituent elements.
— Art Forum
In this brief but sweeping consideration of the place of architecture under today's "digital regime," Koolhaas displays (again) his unique insightfulness.
Here are some highlights:
- "For thousands of years, the elements of architecture were deaf and mute—they could be trusted. Now, many of them are listening, thinking, and talking back, collecting information and performing accordingly."
- "The tech world’s gradual colonization of architecture is taking place without the collaboration of its host. As technology triumphs, architecture is simply left behind."
- "With safety and security as selling points, the city is becoming vastly less adventurous and more predictable. To save the city, it may have to be destroyed. . . ."
- "In the service of the ubiquitous digital regime, a hyper-Cartesian order is being imposed on the countryside, paradoxically leaving the city to take on the poetic and arbitrary appearance once reserved for the pastoral."
- "If the digital is about to deliver us to a sensor culture, does that imply an endless reinforcement of routine—a system proud to deliver more of the same?"
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32 Comments
He IS getting senile
"Instead, political correctness is now a system shared by East and West: It is the official ideology for the twenty-first century."
The internet responded to his comment with a cat video.
Wow, he got old fast.
....Or a quip about him being "old." Ha.
Rem needs to spend more time in virtual reality and less in the physical world.
I agree with him.
A lot of what is being said here is at least 20 years old as theory and possibly older of you take Alvin Toffler's writings in consideration. The major change is after the massive freedom realized in Toffler's Third Wave and the floating in the unknown of twenty years ago.....the freedom of this new world - what Rem is pointing out essentially is those who want to control are now back on top, the revolution has ended.
On the optimistic side, there is still a chance that the values of architecture can be realized in the digital world. I don't see much of it in the current state though.... the sensors and surveillence are mostly here already. Very intereresting time to be alive for the whole human race... could be a very pivotal time for our species.
Architecture has entered into a new engagement with digital culture and capital—which amounts to the most radical change within the discipline since the confluence of modernism and industrial production in the early twentieth century. Yet this shift has gone largely unnoticed, because it has not taken the form of a visible upheaval or wholesale transformation.
Hey Rem, tell us about the new and radical digital culture architecture has entered, it sounds so exciting!!! The only reason this shift has gone un-noticed is because you haven't written a huge best seller on it? He so wants to be the zeitgeist dude again, it's sad.
rem is good at passing off common old ideas as his own.
I think whats sad is that there aren't any architects or critics out there articulating a way for architecture to respond to the digital world. Again, artists and cultural theorists are so incredibly far ahead of architecture. Why is it that we have to wait for Koolhaas to mention the internet before we actually realize that there might be a tremendous challenge/opportunity for Architecture in digital media?
davvid, if there is a tremendous opportunity, don't you think it's already happening? Why do we need a critic to articulate something that architects to everyday? I'd rather these things appear organically as I think they already have. He's just missed the branding opportunity.
Thayer-D,
"Why do we need a critic to articulate something that architects to everyday? I'd rather these things appear organically as I think they already have. "
Because that is how culture works. We examine ourselves and we talk about it. And some people are better at doing that than others.
For example, there was an outbreak of HIV in Indiana recently, but it takes doctors and public health experts to first notice that its happening and second to articulate the reality of the situation to the rest of the world and then third to develop an appropriate response to the realization. The people infected with HIV were not able to do that for themselves.
Why do I need to explain this stuff?
Were you self-taught?
Like I said, Artists and Cultural Theorists are so far ahead of Architecture because Architecture has this enormous drag of nostalgia, corporate hackery and anti-intellectualism.
Someone should do a new Koyaanisqatsi. Scene 1) people looking at Facebook all day 2) folk art museum demo 3) virtual reality video games in museums 4) buildings on fire and collapsing.
Also, it's almost impossible to critique the digital culture from an architectural perspective without sounding like a FB, meme-sucking, power seeking hack yourself.
Rem rode the wave of the information age into architecture giving us buildings built based on data and diagrams. He and the rest of us are terribly disappointed about what architecture has become in the information age. 20 years ago architecture and information age theory by the likes of Paul virillio and a few others amounted to essentially the elimination of place and space......deep down I think Rem would prefer to keep Charleston, SC as it is. See his essay on J kspace. DAVVID architects have been addressing the Internet for 20 years now and all your hero's BIG, REX, etc....are essentially the result of the built environment becoming nothing more than ephemeral media blitzes and diagrams of cash (a nearly non existing value system)......maybe you want to re- address it?
Lightperson,
So because Architects want to feel like manly Ron Swanson woodworker types, architecture culture ends up ignoring huge segments of contemporary culture.
Olaf,
I know junkspace. But thats already outdated. Society and the public sphere is evolving quickly. I'm not even sure that "information age" thinking really captures how we use the internet and social media today or how we will in the near future.
That famous Gretzky quote comes to mind - about skating to where the puck will be.
Architecture is a 3D, craft oriented trade, so I would expect a balance between Ron Swanson and digital. Williams and Tsien restated as much, so does SHoP. As far as the larger culture, there has been a general degridation of the arts generally, as reflected by museums turning into touch screen starbucks and the use of "starchitect" as a degrading term of mockery by every idiot on Twitter. How do you have the fast paced digital culture meet the slow pace of architecture? The slowness of print is a better match for architecture, though there are ways of redesiging digital media to reflect architecture.
I agree that there should be a balance.
I think that the virtual world is in need of better architecture and I think there are opportunities for architects to craft appropriate relationships between the virtual and the physical.
Grand civic building's, for example, are physical manifestations of invisible philosophical concepts and cultural constructs. A building, like the capitol building's double dome, physically expresses an invisible value and a virtual reach that goes far beyond the immediate geographic location of the building.
Shouldn't virtual presence be somehow aligned with the physical presence?
We used to go to museums, music halls and operas to experience something that was rare and otherworldly. But art is now a larger part of our daily lives, or at least it can be. That everyday-ness of art and design has changed how we understand the space of a museum. I can follow an artists progress on Instagram and then see the final work at a gallery (or on a gallery's website) a few months from now.
With that said, we're also more likely to over emphasize online the virtual presence of a Pac-man video game at MoMA that could very easily go unnoticed in the physical space of the MoMA.
I see your point davvid. I actually think culture works best when it's not following a script as articulated by an intellectual. I see the intellectual/historian interpreting the culture once it's time has passed, as was done for millennia, but to do so while it's going on risks boxing it in.
Then again, for those who prefer to work with-in a zeitgeist frame, no problem, I'd rather attack the problem head on without a pre-conceived theoretical mindset beyond the parameters of the problem. Pragmatism...just a different approach.
"Like I said, Artists and Cultural Theorists are so far ahead of Architecture because Architecture has this enormous drag of nostalgia, corporate hackery and anti-intellectualism."
I don't see the logic behind that statement at all though. You seem to rely on these arbiters of culture to actually engage. Imagine how that would apply to the art of music or how would vernacular emerge from. I find this kind of thinking absolutely suffocating. Not to say it won't result in great and meaningful work, but I think it's putting the cart before the horse.
There's a lot of interesting things here. A programmed society, with driverless cars, eliminates the possibility for the serendipitous interaction or getting lost. Big data determinism doesn't really mesh with architecture because it is based on past not future possibility.
Big data is also very racist and sexist because it is based on a metaphysical fallacy. That people are not people but brands. Thats why I find all of these arch stat pushers dangerous because they reinforce the thing that they claim to be remedying
Davvid you are telling me Junkspace is outdated and I am telling you architecture and the Internet (virtual) has already been exhausted theoretically. Society and the public are not evolving but rather revolving and the virtual is making this easier...........architecture is very physical and only the very physical can push the evolution.........think about this way - 100 years ago a literate person was limited to the literature around them physically. Now anyone who is literate can find any information that people 100 years couldn't find or ever come across therefore limiting their minds. Human beings have barely changed their behaviors now that the mind in theory can expand practically infinitely. The Internet and technology is so user friendly now that people's brains are functioning on auto pilot just like if they were watching TV. Did you see the article about a man who drove off a unfinished highway due to his GPS? What evolution?
Well put Olaf. Unfortunately when you point out the cyclical nature of nature you're accused of not believing in progress or evolution. Progress is something that's always been re-defined, and today there's a definite revision of the linear idea held since the enlightenment. Evolution in humans is something that happens at a glaciers pace, although due to global warming, many species will be on an excelerated course if they expect to outpace our excrement.
All that said, this isn't meant to be an excuse to simply copy without thinking, but rather understanding that human nature is more enduring than many 'cultural theorists' would have us believe. That's why some of the great works of literature from classical times still speaks to us, regardless of stylistic trappings. The same could be said of architecture in many periods of the past.
As an architect, I definitely want to design stuff that's seen as original, in whatever style I work in. But more importantly, I want my work to be seen by others as beautiful, rational, and hopefully lasting. I don't always have the conditions to do that, but that's what I strive for. In this sense I don't think I'm much different than many architects before me, regardless of the internet. I like belonging to a larger continuum beyond my life and times. How's that for a cultural theory?
Thayer-D being a young product of the Internet since pre-netscape I of course much like davvid was quite optimistic in undergrad on the relationship of the Internet to architecture. We even would say things like Einstein worked in a clock shop and supposedly so did Corb once so we have to get into this Internet thing..........I am not saying evolution of human race one way or another doesn't happen, for starters my shoulders touch the walls up the stairs in my 1865 Victorian farm house - people were smaller back then........your refinement argument makes more sense which of course begs the stylistic question - couldn't classical becoming more refined to modern techniques be evolution architecturally?................I genuinely think Rem has played out what everything modern and contemporary means to us in architecture and therefore always seems quite prophetic. Rem has already worked out the direction we are going in and it's bleak.....smart city is dumb,etc...
evolution - ahh the refinement ;)
and my favourite
- couldn't classical becoming more refined to modern techniques be evolution architecturally?................
Yes, and when academia finally allows true artistic experimentation across stylistic borders, I'll be very curious to see what emerges. I don't believe in the supremacy of classical symbols any more than I buy into modernism's determinism. Both are valid and everything in between. I think the question of the digital age is a bit more complicated. Like you said earlier, I don't think it changes how people perceive real space but it does seem to alter how we design, for those who design entirely on a computer. In the end though, the end user will be the final judge, and if some crazy hybrids emerge, great, just allow for true exploration without pre-conceived agendas and see what emerges. Once it organically appears, may the branding battles begin.
+++ Olaf
The only connection between the physical world and the virtual world is a meat bag.
Reading 100 year old works on the internet is great in theory, but how many people actually do this? People always joke about the internet being 90% porn and that's probably true. More like 50% porn, 40% design porn, 10% nostalgia.
I've noticed a pattern--those of us in the Netscape era saw a lot of promise in the digital/physical. But perhaps every technological/artistic advance is met by a million bad knock offs. Think Bauhaus, Brutalism, Impressionism, Beatles, Nirvana, Kanye, etc. Then the "brand" becomes so toxic that it has to be reinvented, only to see that reinvention become watered down. Kind of like how every architecture project now tries to have some kind of tweetable gimmick. Its a ski-slope aaaaannnnnd a industrial plant. Gee f**king wiz!
Perhaps Jay-Z offers hope in a future where artists can take back their own medium. While thinks keep revolving and evolving, usually it takes individuals to get the ball rolling.
The issue isn't tech, it is the global corporate commodification of everything. Tech is just the pointy end of the sword. New and Improved!
It is partially tech.....last night at a jersey bar with a crowd that was the cross section of humanity and spending a low amount of money for NYC standards......these 20 something ladies kept staging accidental bumping into me routine. Was there with wife and her friends and I nearly lost my shit laughing and had to tell the other ladies fellas how funny this was, they wondered what was wrong with me?!? My wife is half Colombian - I like being alive........I mean for pushing 40 it's cool to have 20 somethings stage accidental encounters by bumping their asses into you over and over, haha....but after ignoring them - all three of them grabbed their cell phones and went social media. It was like after the human physical rejection they retreated into to virtual social media, I couldn't stop laughing. Like all three whipped out their phone and put their heads down into the phones intensely.
Welcome to hundreds of years ago Rem. Hyper Cartesian order was imposed long before the digital could even be imagined.
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