Archinect - Features

The Manifold Transparencies of Virgil Abloh

2019-06-28T12:03:00-04:00

Archinect has published news posts about fashion designer, artist and Louis Vuitton director Virgil Abloh in the last year, but only to announce any time that he had collaborated with an architect or an architectural theorist. What we had never mentioned, however, is that Abloh is himself trained as an architect, having obtained a Master of Architecture degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in 2003, and has since gone on to describe the lessons learned and architecture studied during these years as crucial to his current success.

From Exodus to S, M, L, XL to Seattle; Architecture with Rem Koolhaas

2018-10-31T12:00:00-04:00

Soapbox is a weekly series delivering a curated set of lectures, talks and symposia concerning contemporary themes but explored through the archives of lectures past and present. With the plethora of lectures, talks, symposia and panels occurring world wide on a daily basis, how can we begin to keep up and if not, find them once they are gone? Soapbox looks to assemble a selection of recent, archived and outlier lectures surrounding a given theme. Soapbox looks to curate this never-ending library of ideas into an engaging and diverse list of thoughts and provocations. Soapbox is just that, a collection aimed at discovering the occasional needle in a haystack.

This week we take a look at Rem Koolhaas.

From the Ground Up: Rem Koolhaas

2018-06-29T09:00:00-04:00

From the Ground Up is a series on Archinect focused on discovering the early stages & signs of history's most prolific architects. Starting from the beginning allows us to understand the long journey architecture takes in even the formative of hands and often, surprising shifts that occur in its journey. These early projects grant us a glimpse into the early, naive, ambitious and at points rough edges of soon to be architectural masters.

New Ground I: Advancing the Countryside

2018-01-31T09:50:00-05:00

Across the urbanized world, the contemporary countryside is a paradox. While media attention is absorbed by the city, many rural regions are experiencing accelerating change due to increased automation, the emergence of megastructures and new self-learning systems, all of which are reshaping the terrain. The divisive political events of 2017 exhibited just how much today’s countryside has grown apart from the city both ideologically and spatially. To kick off 2018, in New Ground I, the first of a two-part feature series co-authored with Christine Bjerke from In-Between Economies, we will briefly explore a selection of major shifts that have influenced how the countryside operates today. We check in with rural demographer and sociologist Ken Johnson from the University of New Hampshire and Ivan Sergejev, an architect exploring the potential of the data center typology. In addition, will be tapping into the latest research from international architecture practice OMA*AMO, who have bee...

Screen Print #50: Rem Koolhaas discusses controversy, collaboration, and cultural revolution in "Happy Tropics"

2017-02-22T13:25:00-05:00

What is the role of an ethically and aesthetically astute architect in a market-driven economy? For Rem Koolhaas, the obstacles of reality shouldn't hinder architects who wish to contribute works that enhance the public realm. In this discussion with Michael Schindhelm excerpted from Happy Tropics 1, Koolhaas explains how by working in Asia, he has not only witnessed the increasing cultural influence of the East versus the West, but also retained his idealism, drive, and desire for collaboration.

Frank Gehry, Steven Holl, Liz Diller, Rem Koolhaas and Others Share Crucial Moments in Their Education

2016-09-30T12:19:00-04:00

What is the role of education in shaping a visionary architect? Several contemporary architects reflect on how the environment, curriculum, and tangential opportunities of their formal learning influenced and shaped their design sensibility.

Archinect's Summer Reading + Listening List: Recommendations from Aaron Betsky, Jimenez Lai, Alan Loomis and Scott Merrill

2016-07-16T10:41:00-04:00

From vivid historical analysis to theoretically-driven essays on Rem Koolhaas to the mesmerizing stream of consciousness of Karl Ove Knausgaard, Aaron Betsky, Jimenez Lai, Alan Loomis and Scott Merrill spoke to Archinect about what they're reading (and listening to).

Here's a quick glimpse of the tenor and scope of their picks, just in time for summer.

Screen/Print #37: "S,M,L,XL" from the Journal of Architectural Education

2015-10-20T14:04:00-04:00

Approaching 70 years in publication, the Journal of Architectural Education is a foundational resource in the profession. As the peer-reviewed, biannual academic journal from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, JAE seeks to provide a platform for discussion of issues relevant to architecture education and academia, while also gathering up the profession’s diverse discursive threads in connection to architecture scholarship. Published to coincide annually with ACSA’s national and regional conferences, our Screen/Print feature focuses on the October 2015 issue, volume 69: "S,M,L,XL".

Screen/Print #23: REM magazine interviews Philippe Rahm and Ugo La Pietra

2014-08-21T11:02:00-04:00

It might be best to consider REM magazine as a performance, rather than a publication. The “short-term” magazine isn't solely about Koolhaas, but began publishing at the start of his Venice Biennale of Architecture in June, placing its feet firmly alongside other satellite exhibitions taking place during the Biennale. But REM isn’t here to analyze — it’s here to pit architects against one another in Koolhaas’ boxing ring.

Book Review: "The City in the City—Berlin: A Green Archipelago. A manifesto"

2014-07-31T09:07:00-04:00

When its first seeds were presented in 1977, Berlin: A Green Archipelago was a quiet, prescient manifesto. Oswald Mathias Ungers and a number of colleagues at Cornell University deviated from the intellectual tenets of current reconstruction efforts, seen in the post-war development of European cities, to propose a new model for the "shrinking city". The text's idea of a polycentric urban system really took hold in the 1990s, as urban planning discourse turned towards socioeconomic considerations of ebbing and flowing growth.

Art + Architecture: an interview with Lagos documentary filmmaker Bregtje van der Haak

2014-07-16T18:29:00-04:00

Several weeks ago, we featured Bregtje van der Haak's interactive documentary, Lagos Close and Wide: an Interactive Journey into an Exploding City, originally released as a DVD in 2004 and now available online. The project emerged from van der Haak's 2001 trip to Lagos, Nigeria with the architect Rem Koolhaas and their attempt to capture the city at a crucial moment in its emergence as the fastest growing city on the continent. ("Every hour, fifty new people start their lives in Lagos" states the film's description). The documentary utilizes a novel and innovative format in which the information is organized by distance – close-up, through the perspective of bus driver Olawole Busayo, and the more distant perspective typical of many urban studies. Users choose between these visual perspectives as well as various audio by Koolhaas and Lagosians. We recently touched base with van der Haak to better understand her motivations behind the project and experiences of making it.

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Koolhaas wreaks havoc at A+D Museum's "S,M,L,XLA" exhibition

2014-07-14T11:02:00-04:00

In the 1958 classic film "The Blob", a globular alien terrorizes a small Pennsylvanian town, ravenously absorbing everything and everyone in its path. It's formidable but silly looking at the same time, and the more it takes in the bigger and angrier it gets. Walking through the Architecture and Design Museum at the opening of their S,M,L,XLA exhibition, at times it felt like The Blob had overtaken curation.

Op-Ed: From (EX)CITE to (IN)CITE, reflecting on Rem's Biennale

2014-07-07T12:43:00-04:00

EXCITE

Rem Koolhaas, chief curator of the 2014 Venice Biennale, managed to excite us, again forcing us to rethink the Elements and Fundamentals of architecture. For me, this is the first time I felt a real desire to visit the show, which I have always imagined to be more like an amusement park for new design.

Rem's Venice Biennale is "like being immersed in a stormy S,M,L,XL, with a glass of wine, and hundreds of other people"

2014-06-16T10:46:00-04:00

Is Modernism “history”? How do Modern concepts, especially regarding representation, nature, technology and housing, relate to the current state of architecture? These were some overarching questions embedded in the 14th Venice Biennale of Architecture, curated by Rem Koolhaas. The show opened June 7th under the “Fundamentals” theme, and it is worth visiting for the important questions it raises about the current state of architecture and building.

BackStory: Casa Da Musica

2007-11-04T23:00:00-05:00

BackStory is an Archinect series that focuses on personal experiences of well-known buildings from those who are closest to them: docents, owners, janitors, occupants, and others. This is the expanded view or the bonus features that we may add to the official documentation of a project. Each entry in this series is a story about the building told from an intensely personal perspective.