did anyone else make it tonight? it's curious how the same questions get asked everytime OMA presents anything on the CCTV...in this case, the lecture was very much tailored as an a-political discussion of the high rise, with a bit of general recap from delerious new york, etc, and illustrating the firm's long history of infrastructural gymnastics. some interesting slides of past projects that seeded the current OMA tendency toward towers on stilts with a collar-tie platform several hundred feet up.
and yet the questions immediately (and much to rem and ole's apparent discomfort) jump to the politics of working in China, and western vs eastern despotism. I thought Rem's response to the whole problem was pretty honest; he essentially said that the worldview of five years ago when the project first came into being is in many ways different than the apparent global future of today, and that the considerations at the time are being taken somewhat out of context in the current state.
so who else was there? his answer to Steven Holl's "question" was a bit short and grumpy, don't you think?
i would also like to hear some coments from people who have been there...
misterTT,
Kohlhaas' response to this China-issue is certainly just another poor excuse; just read his and Ole Scheeren comments in the last years: they permanently were trying to show confidence in their decision to build CCTV.
see also my post about OMA at the MOMA from a few days ago...
The lecture was pretty interesting last night. The audience was treated to some of Mr. Koolhaas's one-line answers to multi-part questions as well as the zealous youth of Ole Scheeren. Things got a little intense at the end when Rem, after being asked about the cultural reflections ( or lack of) of the CCTV tower, responded: (paraphrase) " We dont design for the governments of China, or Asia, or European flash, or American arsonists..."
Once again though, Wigley showed immeasurable class by remarking that such a massive project deserves criticism and comment and deflty closing the lecture...
all in all, a really good time.
also, Steven Holl was turning the thumbscrews a bit by asking about the massive MEP draw of such a building to which Rem replied " Of course we thought about it, but we had other things to focus on." or something dismissive like that...
sverris, from the other post and your comments on this one, it seems that you have some personal beef against OMA.
so are you going to target Herzog de Meuron next for their efforts in buidling the stadium for the olympics? or is it going to be Zaha for her project in Guanzhou?
not personal. Kohlhaas is possibly an interesting guy, and some projects may have truly their value. but others do not, and here, one must not keep quiet. i take CCTV and some attitudes in OMAs practice as an example of a general situation in architecture today. so, if one wants to reach a few minds, then one must a bit stick to single or specific issues or projects or offices. (the others and the general is present though in my critique: see my post on this gazprom competition.)
but you are perfectly right: H&dM play in the same league, as we can see in the project you named and in the gazprom competition. but their stadium is not such a big symbol like CCTV...; the latter is simply outstanding, in terms of media presence, future use, costs etc.
Ole did say a fair amount; it seems that he is the default answer guy at this point, especially to the less challenging questions that inevetably pop up. Rem will chime in when something he's been mulling over for a couple minutes finally gels. I caught his (just Ole) talk four or five weeks ago as well about CCTV (the slides were all pretty much the same) and i've got to say that he's a very good public speaker, and performs well on the fly. I can imagine it would be easy to get flustered when the only things the audience wants to ask are the questions of the very act of building at that scale and in that place in such an iconographic manner.
it was very interesting to see OMA's project in Dubai that they will(?) be building, in comparison to CCTV. I see some similarities in the two contexts, and for OMA to focus so strongly on a 'new beginning' slab of concrete in the desert. I think most people had a negative reaction to it (i forget the dimensions, but something like 300 meters long, 200 meters high and 21 meters thin) I'm looking on it positively for now, but the master planning of it in a lake by itself and its surrounding freeways makes it naturally into an icon, no matter the blankness of articulation.
I made a concious effort not to trot uptown last night for that lecture. The last Rem lecture i attended at Columbia in 2004 was totall waste of 3 hours of my life. Glad to know he actually talked about architecture in this one instead of just geography, wishing i'd gone now.
the official unofficial Rem/Ole @ columbia thread
did anyone else make it tonight? it's curious how the same questions get asked everytime OMA presents anything on the CCTV...in this case, the lecture was very much tailored as an a-political discussion of the high rise, with a bit of general recap from delerious new york, etc, and illustrating the firm's long history of infrastructural gymnastics. some interesting slides of past projects that seeded the current OMA tendency toward towers on stilts with a collar-tie platform several hundred feet up.
and yet the questions immediately (and much to rem and ole's apparent discomfort) jump to the politics of working in China, and western vs eastern despotism. I thought Rem's response to the whole problem was pretty honest; he essentially said that the worldview of five years ago when the project first came into being is in many ways different than the apparent global future of today, and that the considerations at the time are being taken somewhat out of context in the current state.
so who else was there? his answer to Steven Holl's "question" was a bit short and grumpy, don't you think?
i would also like to hear some coments from people who have been there...
misterTT,
Kohlhaas' response to this China-issue is certainly just another poor excuse; just read his and Ole Scheeren comments in the last years: they permanently were trying to show confidence in their decision to build CCTV.
see also my post about OMA at the MOMA from a few days ago...
The lecture was pretty interesting last night. The audience was treated to some of Mr. Koolhaas's one-line answers to multi-part questions as well as the zealous youth of Ole Scheeren. Things got a little intense at the end when Rem, after being asked about the cultural reflections ( or lack of) of the CCTV tower, responded: (paraphrase) " We dont design for the governments of China, or Asia, or European flash, or American arsonists..."
Once again though, Wigley showed immeasurable class by remarking that such a massive project deserves criticism and comment and deflty closing the lecture...
all in all, a really good time.
also, Steven Holl was turning the thumbscrews a bit by asking about the massive MEP draw of such a building to which Rem replied " Of course we thought about it, but we had other things to focus on." or something dismissive like that...
anyone else there who can fill in the gaps?
Did Scheeren actually say anything - or was he just decoration or carrying the usual laptop?
sverris, from the other post and your comments on this one, it seems that you have some personal beef against OMA.
so are you going to target Herzog de Meuron next for their efforts in buidling the stadium for the olympics? or is it going to be Zaha for her project in Guanzhou?
not personal. Kohlhaas is possibly an interesting guy, and some projects may have truly their value. but others do not, and here, one must not keep quiet. i take CCTV and some attitudes in OMAs practice as an example of a general situation in architecture today. so, if one wants to reach a few minds, then one must a bit stick to single or specific issues or projects or offices. (the others and the general is present though in my critique: see my post on this gazprom competition.)
but you are perfectly right: H&dM play in the same league, as we can see in the project you named and in the gazprom competition. but their stadium is not such a big symbol like CCTV...; the latter is simply outstanding, in terms of media presence, future use, costs etc.
Ole did say a fair amount; it seems that he is the default answer guy at this point, especially to the less challenging questions that inevetably pop up. Rem will chime in when something he's been mulling over for a couple minutes finally gels. I caught his (just Ole) talk four or five weeks ago as well about CCTV (the slides were all pretty much the same) and i've got to say that he's a very good public speaker, and performs well on the fly. I can imagine it would be easy to get flustered when the only things the audience wants to ask are the questions of the very act of building at that scale and in that place in such an iconographic manner.
it was very interesting to see OMA's project in Dubai that they will(?) be building, in comparison to CCTV. I see some similarities in the two contexts, and for OMA to focus so strongly on a 'new beginning' slab of concrete in the desert. I think most people had a negative reaction to it (i forget the dimensions, but something like 300 meters long, 200 meters high and 21 meters thin) I'm looking on it positively for now, but the master planning of it in a lake by itself and its surrounding freeways makes it naturally into an icon, no matter the blankness of articulation.
I made a concious effort not to trot uptown last night for that lecture. The last Rem lecture i attended at Columbia in 2004 was totall waste of 3 hours of my life. Glad to know he actually talked about architecture in this one instead of just geography, wishing i'd gone now.
any video or link to unfortunate ones who weren't able to attend and listen to remspeak?
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