Rem Koolhaas has been announced as this year's recipient of the Dutch state prize for the arts, the Johannes Vermeer Award. The jury made a unanimous decision, citing Koolhaas’ critical contributions to architecture and urbanism since his career began with the publication of Delirious New York in 1975. — bustler.net

...even for a big gun like Koolhaas, the global depression has had an impact. Thus his new furniture line for Knoll called “Tools for Life.” It’s a pretty standard track for any architect when the commissions start to dry up; have some interns fart out designs for a furniture line, ship it off to China for production, then slap a price tag on it with no less that 4 zeros and BOOM! you’re back makin’ Bentley payments and wearing Prada suits in no time. — The World's Best Ever

"Irrational exuberance" seems to me an apt introduction to an understanding of Rem Koolhaas in the '90s and beyond; it foregrounds his great success in navigating the intersection of the pragmatic corporate sector, on the one hand, and the “delirious” and volatile realm of desire and possibility, on the other. ... Koolhaas has encouraged his followers to shed the crippling shackles of critical theory and pick up a surfboard upon which to ride the shock waves of the new economy. — Places Journal

Architecture’s favorite black humorist Rem Koolhaas is at it again, off planning a Venice Biennale that stresses the dangers of globalization while battling conservationists for rights to transform a 16th-century Venetian palazzo — which currently serves as a post office — into a retail hotspot. Koolhaas’s firm OMA and its client Benetton recently secured permission to redesign the palazzo into a department store/cultural venue after five years of facing resistance from preservationists. — blogs.artinfo.com

Yet another treatise on Steve Jobs? As an “architect” — really? And with Apple seemingly waning, aren't we behind the curve on this? Suffice it to say that my interest is not solely in Jobs himself, but rather in the challenge he poses to the methods and purpose of an architectural historian.... But since architectural stories are surprising rare here on the edge of the continent, I need a shtick; no matter my connoisseur-ish personal tastes and leftist political dispositions. — Places Journal

OMA has been awarded the first place in the international design competition for the Essence Financial Building in Shenzhen, China. OMA Partners David Gianotten and Rem Koolhaas are heading the project which they intend to be a new generation office tower for Shenzhen. — bustler.net

Orhan Ayyüce published parts 1 + 2 of a multi-part interview with George Brugmans (Executive Director of the IABR)...Thayer-D chimed in "This is an excellent example of how well intentioned architects continue to talk past each other...One of the speakers spoke of the need to create relationships with politicians, developers and the public in general to forge a new way forward...What's amazing is that this has been happening for the last 20 years in the Congress for New Urbanism

Fundamentals will be a Biennale about architecture, not architects. After several Biennales dedicated to the celebration of the contemporary, Fundamentals will focus on histories – on the inevitable elements of all architecture used by any architect, anywhere, anytime (the door, the floor, the ceiling etc.) and on the evolution of national architectures in the last 100 years. — labiennale.org

The staging was called the Ideal House, and it was a fully furnished modern home, but one with an audience, a runway wrapped around it, and “windows” projected on the walls with scenes of the outside world. It was the latest in many intricate and avant-garde pairings between Prada and OMA...

The 12-piece furniture collection, designed by OMA for Knoll, will debut at the Salon Internazionale del Mobile in Milan in April. — blogs.artinfo.com

Indicating his ambitions for the next showcase in 2014, Koolhaas said he planned to ‘give a new look’ to architecture’s basic elements ‘to see if we can discover something new about architecture.’

The festival’s board, chaired by Paolo Baratta, formally appointed the star architect to the role today. — architectsjournal.co.uk

The series of videos below offers a fascinating insight into how this generation of "starchitects" behaves under pressure, as they each pitch to win one of the most high-profile competitions in recent years: a new tower for L&L Holding Company on Park Avenue in New York. The site has such daunting neighbours as Mies van der Rohe's Seagram building, and it will be the first full-block office tower to be built on the street in almost half a century. — guardian.co.uk

“For us, it was really a blend of what’s the right concept for Park Avenue, a place that has not had a new building for almost 50 years, an avenue that is quite possibly the most important commercial boulevard in New York City, quite possibly the United States, and what is the place of a new build down the street from Seagrams and Lever House, two of the greatest buildings ever built,” Daivd Levinson said. — New York Observer

Thieves broke into a Rotterdam museum on Tuesday and walked off with works from the likes of Picasso, Monet, Gauguin and Matisse potentially worth hundreds of millions. "Those thieves got one hell of a haul," said Chris Marinello, who directs the Art Loss Register. — NYT

Building upon a short Wednesday evening presentation he gave at Rice, Koolhaas opened with discussion of historical preservation, a topic that elicited mixed emotions for the architect while, at the same time, offered a window into his approach to the built environment.

"Preservation is a highly artificial term," he explained. "History happens and leaves its traces . . . I have to say, I prefer history without preservation." — houston.culturemap.com