as i was sifting through the images on this thread, i began to think all this stuff just looks like a bunch of oma spin-off work. the whole kitschy "cool" way that oma and its spin-offs design at least to my eyes is seeming really tired these days.
so my question, after more than a decade of being the de facto design office and arbitor of the new and stylish in architecture, is oma on the decline? and if so, are there any offices or better yet styles/looks/theories that have come around to usurp its place at the vanguard of contemporary architecture?
no, that was the right thread. though not specifically oma work, i found much of the work to be reminiscent of or in the same spirit as oma's work. i doubt a lot of that work would have happened without oma.
though you're right, perhaps not the best example to start the thread with.
apu, i guess for me it's not so much a question of scope as it is of style. it's the style of oma's work - their cool and casual way of drawing, designing and detailing - that just seems a bit tired.
What's cool about OMA is that Rem and co. captures the zeitgeist (and thats the first time i've ever used that word on this forum) perfectly. Their work is corporate but playful, shallow yet deep, complex yet simple. The design process from blue foam --> form --> building --> post-rationalized theory to justify the building, i think is a perfect metaphor for how the modern world works. Substance and depth is an add-on now and OMA are the best at that. I don't know if any of that makes sense, but in a market driven world ruled by fashion, shopping and retail, OMA is one of the few firms that really understands and exploits that.
i think that's spot on, apu, and definitely one of the reasons why i appreciated oma for many years, but i think what i'm wondering though is if the zeitgeist hasn't changed. we're in a bit more serious time with wars, terrorism, global climate change, etc. and the post-consumerist fantasy that encapsulated oma's work for so long seems a bit trite taken within our contemporary global context. to make this even more far flung (why not? ;) ), i wonder how oma's ironic commentary fits into a hopeful and genuine "obamacized" world.
well if OMA is becoming bloated and corporate... their work still remains overall very good quality and very interesting, way above what most people are doing. but you're right that their age of being the new young kings with innovative and revolutionary ideas are fast waning. they will still be relevant, just not in the same way.
so the big question is what comes next?
1) overly sculptural architecture? no way, totally overdone by zaha, gehry, libeskind, etc. i lump blobitecture into this group too.
2) overly green architecture? please no, green is something a consultant should do to your already cool design
3) a return to writing and theory? maybe
4) technofetishism / generative components / scripting? maybe. if you add patternmaking and 2d-graphical architecture
I disagree that the zeitgeist has changed. Afterall we've been living in the era or terror and war for seven years, and in that time OMA's completed Seattle, Porto and CCTV.
Rem's been ahead of the curve for a long time now - he first started his china research at the GSD in 1995, and now 13 yrs later he's completing CCTV. Delirious new york was published almost 30 years ago. He's never shied away from reinventing himself, or moving to stay ahead of the times. If fact, you should look at the issue of wire that he curated in 2002. He has an essay in there where he really wonders what his role will be in the earnest post 9-11 world. He'll be a powerful voice in architecture for as long as he lives.
Styles and fads come and go - since delirious new york, we've gone through pomo, decon, blobs ...etc. What's made Rem so important is that he's had substantive and challenging takes on architecture, the city, our profession's relation to the market and globalization.
Nicholas lists a lot of trends/ styles/ techniques that are, let's say, in the ether these days. But in a way they all are inadequate for the same reason: they each only tackle a small wedge of the architectural challenge.
To figure out what's the next thing for architecture, ask yourself: what are the major issues facing urbanism, development, capital ...etc. in the next 10 years. and then look at who is trying to answer those challenges ...
great points, j-turn. i don't disagree that koolhaas has always had a way of reinventing himself to adapt to a contemporary world context. i just haven't seen this as much of late (perhaps a symptom of my drifting further and further from academia rather than a reflection on koolhaas). part of this may also be the architectural lag, i.e. it takes several years for an idea to manifest itself in the built environment.
but for me the artefacts that koolhaas has left behind in recent years have not been as compelling as S,M,L,XL or the built projects of the 90s. perhaps my understanding of cctv is naive, but in terms of ideas it seems a bit empty. his forays into the middle east have seemed largely formal and if anything only reflect the hypercapitalism of the region rather than revealing anything about it. i would really like to see koolhaas come out with another book to explain his positions on some of these issues, because i don't think they are manifest in his architecture. in the meantime, i'm not so sure his current architecture has the relevence it once did; i would like to be proven wrong on that though.
I'm skeptical of the middle east stuff, and would like to hear it explained. For so many of the new projects you see one or two renderings online, and without the diagrams to tell the story, we're all in the dark.
I've been to seattle and porto recently, and they're both amazing. I used to think that an oma project was about the idea and the diagram and the actual thing was almost secondary, but that's not the case in either of those pojects.
ja, i like this thread. before reading the comments though i kind of had a different thought about what you meant. to me rem really isnt getting tired but the fact that there are so many oma impersonators out there does seem to say that his "style" is getting to be a bit cliche'. its certainly not because he has played himself out- i.e. f.o.g., its that so many people try to do what he does.
in relation to your linked thread, what i get from that is a clear imitation of some of what rem has done. as mentioned above- the cool casual kind of hippish way of doing things- no longer has novelty. the textiled interiors that initially drove me to love his work seems to be replicated in any new project.
perhaps its because half of our field has worked in his office or for someone who has(?)
also, in regards to him challenging himself, i think cctv is a way of doing that. i really dont think there was an awful lot of thought or theory behind it, but it shows that oma is not bound to do the simple programmed spaces/buildings. they can be formal and be very loud about it and can do it well.
Aug 13, 08 5:14 pm ·
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Reenactionary architecturism is just slightly younger than architecture itself.
ether, i'm intrigued by your anti-OMA image. i think it's spot on, but i feel really ambivalent toward it. it's sort of high tech looking (oma=low tech appearance, dumb details), eco-modish (i think it's safe to say koolhaas has not outwardly professed an interest in green design, at least in a technological sort of way), fairly ambivalently sited in its context (koolhaas for all his latter day formalism is obsessed with a larger notion of context), and even the rendering is slick (as opposed to koolhaas's "unsophisticated" collage style). for all that that image is doing (and i think it is doing a lot), it doesn't resonate in quite the same way many of koolhaas's projects do. still, though, i think it's a good representation of the anti-OMA.
Aug 13, 08 8:27 pm ·
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The 'slick rendering' is a photograph of an actual building.
to me the cellophane house represents anti pop culture. it is what it is and nothing more (in terms of ideas, not the technology employed). (to me) there's no post rationalization, nothing flashy, sexy, shallow/deep or complex/simple. and it's definitely not trying to capture any philosophical trend or zeitgeist.
the pre-fab house is not sophisticated enough to be OMA. on many levels.
you could easily say anything by OMA is also what it is. rem does not explain or theorise his architecture. there is no concept, no deep philosophy, just some logic about planning that may or may not have anything to do with what the building looks like, but very likely has lots to do with how its organised. that is not so easy to do and is why oma is quite remarkable even today.
there are lots and lots of zeitgeists today. probably there will be a few more tomorrow. thing about zeitgeist is that it is not really there. its just an artificial category created by people who feel comfy with boundaries. not a bad thing in itself but dangerous if one believes it is real.
like the story goes, a whale may well think the purpose of evolution is to make large aquatic mammals, while sharks think the omega point is defined by sharp teeth, and victorians very likely thought evolution was aiming to make victorians - when in fact evolution favors nothing but change.
same with zeitgeist. it is what you want it to be.
would be amazing if something came along that beat out OMA, but i dont see it yet. certainly not with the work in that article quoted at the beginning. i frankly see no connection between that work and OMA at all. if you are shocked by the work of the interior design type world i can certainly sympathise, but it is not OMA that is being copied. the architects who do the work in the article are just struggling to be noticed in the media-saturated world they work in and want to make stores that grab attention of customers, etc. that requires formal invention - which is part of the package more than actual attempt to be OMA-ish.
rem does not explain or theorise his architecture. there is no concept, no deep philosophy, just some logic about planning that may or may not have anything to do with what the building looks like, but very likely has lots to do with how its organised.
i don't know about this, jump. i think of all architects he very succinctly lays out the how and the why of his work. guys like eisenman obfuscate; koolhaas for the most part i think prides himself in a sort of deadpan transparency. books like delirious, s,m,l,xl, and content help clarify his position, but it is also evident in the buildings down to the detailing.
i still tend to believe in the concept of a zeitgeist even if it is at times forced. koolhaas with the wit of his architecture to me has a postmodern outlook (and i'm not talking venturi here). not saying that koolhaas can't adapt; he has shown that he is very capable of that. i just wonder a bit if his forays into hypercapitalism may no longer be a reflection of where we are as a society or perhaps the aspirations of a society. albeit i am writing this in america and i believe the challenges this country is facing are diverging from the hegemonic powers developing in asia and the middle east. big thoughts, perhaps bigger than myself to understand.
typical prefab, maybe. but the ideas the cellophane attempts to engage are far more sophisticated than any CCTV. the reason i posted the image was to juxtapose the transparency of it's motivation in response to some of apu's comments above regarding OMA's work. i'm not comparing KTA's body of work to OMA's only using the cellphane as a catechism to the ensuing conversation.
I'm too busy to look for it, but Rem once vaugely referred to a subtly gradual shift by saying something along the lines of 'I don't know exactly what it was, but S, M, L, XL was the end of something.'
I want to talk about your work since S,M,L,XL because the book is where my personal involvement with your work stopped. Could you say that S,M,L,XL marks the end of a sort of adolescence in your career?
I don't know of what, but it was definitely the end of something. You know the book was published at a moment of serious crisis in our office, so everything that happened since is part of the construction of a new office, the construction of a new way of looking at architecture that culminated in the founding of AMO...
. . . . . . . .
... I asked you before about S,M,L,XL marking a rupture in your career and you answered by talking about how the structure of your office has changed. But what about your architectural work? How would you define the relationship of your recent work with the themes dealt with in S,M,L,XL? Are there certain themes that you are still trying to work out, or realize?
There is, in current culture, a relentless demand for newness. But there are also certain themes in S,M,L,XL that were never realized but that would still be interesting to realize. There's also almost a degree of embarrassment because some of the themes have been partly realized by others. After S,M,L,XL I felt an obligation to do something new - it was very clearly imposed by that external expectation. At the same time, I wanted to resist that commercial pressure and — where interesting or relevant or plausible — maintain an interest in "old" things...
. . . . . . . .
Do you think S,M,L,XL was too explicit? Did you give too much away?
S,M,L,XL asserted the equivalence of things whether they were built or not. But it also gave many people access to our ideas. So I feel part of a very crowded field. Now we need new secrets
JEN: I want to talk about your work since S,M,L,XL because the book is where my personal involvement with your work stopped. Could you say that S,M,L,XL marks the end of a sort of adolescence in your career?
REM: I don't know of what, but it was definitely the end of something. You know the book was published at a moment of serious crisis in our office, so everything that happened since is part of the construction of a new office, the construction of a new way of looking at architecture that culminated in the founding of AMO. AMO doesn't stand for anything specific, but it could be Architecture Media Organization. OMA and AMO are like Siamese twins that were recently separated. We divide the entire field of architecture into two parts: one is actual building, mud, the huge effort of realizing a project; the other is virtual — everything related to concepts and "pure" architectural thinking. The separation enables us to liberate architectural thinking from architectural practice. That inevitably leads to a further questioning of the need for architecture, but now our manner of questioning has changed: first we did it through buildings; now we can do it through intellectual activities parallel to building.
"the pre-fab house is not sophisticated enough to be OMA"
I see a still life with apples and oranges....
The Cellophane House, and the Loblolly House before it, are addressing changes in the presently wasteful and snail-paced means of production and assembly of houses and other buildings: KTA's aim is thus totally focused on this. But, through their language of "scaffolds", "cartridges", and "blocks", KTA also designs with a certain sophistication (I would live in the Loblolly house in a hearbeat), and I really don't care whether it's more or less sophisticated than OMA's.
i'm not one to think that the burgeoning of a new generation of oma-legacy work signals the end of the older generation. one of the great benefits oma has provided for architecture design culture is that they've developed and taught a way of working that others can run with. now the oma-babies are teaching in schools, sharing their own particular perspective built on what they learned via oma. it's an expanding thing.
rem's not done just because he's taught others, it EXTENDS HIS BRAND.
KOOLHAAS---(to be sung to the classic Commodores hit -Brickhouse)
he's a kool---haas
Mighty mighty, just gettin' a little played out...
he's a kool---haas
His buildings are stacked and that's a fact,
OMA ain't holding nothing back.
he's a kool---haas
he's the one in the prada
who's struttin down the strada
The students love him ya everybody knows,
and here's how the story goes.
Verse:
1. he knows he got everything
a starchitect needs to get commission, yeah.
How can he use, the things he use
thaat hyper-rationalism now thazz a winning hand!
(Chorus)
Verse:
2. The clothes he wears, the jet settin ways,
all the young kids sendin him their resumes
he's so kool and so real
who else could build a buildin that uses so much steel...
Rem (Sung to the classic ballad about a rat Ben by Michael Jackson)
Rem is a name that all
the architecture students know
Rem your rise to fame
has not been slow
All the world loves your style
you can make Charlie Rose smile
I ll work for you for free just say when
you got a devotee in me
oh Rem
Rem, you're always running to and fro
irony and intricicacy an ebb and flow
no you never look behind
your reputation climbs and climbs
now i don't want to be an archidork
but will you please sign my copy of delerious new york...
(delerious new york)
you've got a devotee in me
oh rem...
Rem
you drove a train through mies's place
and decorated your building with his face
you spelled it out small, medium, large and extra large
knitting a world like madame du farge
people think youre gettin tired
i guess they didn't read that cover story in Wired
they don't see you like we do
i wish they would try to
and then maybe just then
they'd see the visionary that is rem...
rem always is famous for the blunt details in his architecture, but if you look at his buildings the detailing is very carefully considered.
in the sense that the pre-fab building is all about details, by nature is even defined by details i find it a shame that the pre-fab building is pretty much just an example of technology and has little to do with how it feels to be in the building.
on those two levels i find that particular pre-fab building to be a bad representation of what architecture can and should be. it is soul-less. no offense to the architects cuz i know it represents a lot of work, but as an aspirational thing i find the lack of sophistication to be an enormous shame.
not just as an architect, but because it represents a missed opportunity to sell an idea to the public. people don't give a shit about technology except as it fits into a narrative. and this one has none. THAT is what i mean by sophistication. Sophistication is not about being complex, it is not about being erudite, nor does it require lots of education. BUT IT DOES NEED DEPTH. and the anti-oma building is pretty shallow. neat. but shallow. a one-liner.
i think you can find lots of evidence that rem does not really try to apply his own theories to his buildings. he has often and happily even done things that fly in the face of his writings. when asked about this he says he doesn't feel any obligation to live within the confines of his prose. artificial limits i think are not something he cares for, even the ones he makes himself.
i find the idea that mvrdv is better at doing OMA work than OMA. very interesting. i don't agree, but i have heard it before. very curious. there is a kind of contradiction in there. rem and oma were once the goal but then they let things go and so the heirs to his early work are continuing in the correct vein? it sounds very protestant vs. catholic to me. mvrdv are the lutheran correction to excess of the oma papacy under the nasty medici-pope?
Quite a fascinating comparison, but in my opinion we don't have quite that kind of hindsight yet. Like jump, I've found that MVRDV (or Xaveer de Geyter, etc.) have thus far fallen short of Rem's genius at the helm of OMA.
Aug 15, 08 12:44 am ·
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The sun will finally set on OMA/AMO if Koolhaas becomes risk-averse.
How many other architects actually seek out the risk? It is indeed Koolhaas' continual seeking-out-the-risk that sets Koolhaas as an architectural designer apart. The "envelop" really doesn't get pushed without taking a risk, and Koolhaas knows that full well.
Apropos, I cannot think of riskier work of architecture than CCTV.
risk : 1. exposure to the chance of injury or loss; a hazard or dangerous chance
But doesn't anyone feel that OMA has become a bit bloated? That they accept projects that may in theory have possibilities, but end up being just cynical, tongue-in-cheek riffs (e.g. the Guggenheim Las Vegas.)
MVRDV hasn't had nearly the level of international commissions or attention. But that has allowed them to develop a very rich and interesting body of work—work that includes little houses and smaller projects. There's a laboratory quality to MVRDV that seems to have disappeared a bit from OMA. Maybe that's because, as OMA has grown, Rem's ability to be involved in every project has diminished. And the scale and hype of the projects has grown to the point where they can't even be looked at as buildings any more, but as some sort of hyper-media-phenomena.
On the other hand, the sheer theoretical genius of OMA seems unparalleled, when he's in control of OMA's output.
Aug 15, 08 9:52 am ·
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The Guggenheim Las Vegas was a risk in a town that is all about risk. Apropos again, contextual even.
I find it disappointing that MVRDV has stayed so close to OMA in their development. They seem to be caught a SMLXL era OMA mode, and their work has become repetitive.
Comparatively, foa and big have managed to step beyond the oma sphere a bit and have found their own directions.
has the sun finally set on oma?
controversial topic of the day.
as i was sifting through the images on this thread, i began to think all this stuff just looks like a bunch of oma spin-off work. the whole kitschy "cool" way that oma and its spin-offs design at least to my eyes is seeming really tired these days.
so my question, after more than a decade of being the de facto design office and arbitor of the new and stylish in architecture, is oma on the decline? and if so, are there any offices or better yet styles/looks/theories that have come around to usurp its place at the vanguard of contemporary architecture?
ja ~ i think you linked the wrong thread...
no, that was the right thread. though not specifically oma work, i found much of the work to be reminiscent of or in the same spirit as oma's work. i doubt a lot of that work would have happened without oma.
though you're right, perhaps not the best example to start the thread with.
anyway, you get the drift.
I think you did too.
When all is said and done, it will be damn near impossible for them to top CCTV.
Oh, except I forgot about that city they're designing in the UAE.
apu, i guess for me it's not so much a question of scope as it is of style. it's the style of oma's work - their cool and casual way of drawing, designing and detailing - that just seems a bit tired.
What's cool about OMA is that Rem and co. captures the zeitgeist (and thats the first time i've ever used that word on this forum) perfectly. Their work is corporate but playful, shallow yet deep, complex yet simple. The design process from blue foam --> form --> building --> post-rationalized theory to justify the building, i think is a perfect metaphor for how the modern world works. Substance and depth is an add-on now and OMA are the best at that. I don't know if any of that makes sense, but in a market driven world ruled by fashion, shopping and retail, OMA is one of the few firms that really understands and exploits that.
i think that's spot on, apu, and definitely one of the reasons why i appreciated oma for many years, but i think what i'm wondering though is if the zeitgeist hasn't changed. we're in a bit more serious time with wars, terrorism, global climate change, etc. and the post-consumerist fantasy that encapsulated oma's work for so long seems a bit trite taken within our contemporary global context. to make this even more far flung (why not? ;) ), i wonder how oma's ironic commentary fits into a hopeful and genuine "obamacized" world.
well if OMA is becoming bloated and corporate... their work still remains overall very good quality and very interesting, way above what most people are doing. but you're right that their age of being the new young kings with innovative and revolutionary ideas are fast waning. they will still be relevant, just not in the same way.
so the big question is what comes next?
1) overly sculptural architecture? no way, totally overdone by zaha, gehry, libeskind, etc. i lump blobitecture into this group too.
2) overly green architecture? please no, green is something a consultant should do to your already cool design
3) a return to writing and theory? maybe
4) technofetishism / generative components / scripting? maybe. if you add patternmaking and 2d-graphical architecture
hmm
I disagree that the zeitgeist has changed. Afterall we've been living in the era or terror and war for seven years, and in that time OMA's completed Seattle, Porto and CCTV.
Rem's been ahead of the curve for a long time now - he first started his china research at the GSD in 1995, and now 13 yrs later he's completing CCTV. Delirious new york was published almost 30 years ago. He's never shied away from reinventing himself, or moving to stay ahead of the times. If fact, you should look at the issue of wire that he curated in 2002. He has an essay in there where he really wonders what his role will be in the earnest post 9-11 world. He'll be a powerful voice in architecture for as long as he lives.
Styles and fads come and go - since delirious new york, we've gone through pomo, decon, blobs ...etc. What's made Rem so important is that he's had substantive and challenging takes on architecture, the city, our profession's relation to the market and globalization.
Nicholas lists a lot of trends/ styles/ techniques that are, let's say, in the ether these days. But in a way they all are inadequate for the same reason: they each only tackle a small wedge of the architectural challenge.
To figure out what's the next thing for architecture, ask yourself: what are the major issues facing urbanism, development, capital ...etc. in the next 10 years. and then look at who is trying to answer those challenges ...
great points, j-turn. i don't disagree that koolhaas has always had a way of reinventing himself to adapt to a contemporary world context. i just haven't seen this as much of late (perhaps a symptom of my drifting further and further from academia rather than a reflection on koolhaas). part of this may also be the architectural lag, i.e. it takes several years for an idea to manifest itself in the built environment.
but for me the artefacts that koolhaas has left behind in recent years have not been as compelling as S,M,L,XL or the built projects of the 90s. perhaps my understanding of cctv is naive, but in terms of ideas it seems a bit empty. his forays into the middle east have seemed largely formal and if anything only reflect the hypercapitalism of the region rather than revealing anything about it. i would really like to see koolhaas come out with another book to explain his positions on some of these issues, because i don't think they are manifest in his architecture. in the meantime, i'm not so sure his current architecture has the relevence it once did; i would like to be proven wrong on that though.
Yeah, how many anti OMA backlashes have we lived through at this point? I hope they keep doing interesting things for a while yet.
This appeals to me. The overlay of generative elements and the resultant hyper-figure/hyper ground.
I like this too...
good reads:
http://www.elcroquis.es/MagazineDetail.aspx?magazinesId=150&lang=en
http://www.elcroquis.es/MagazineDetail.aspx?magazinesId=153&lang=es
yeah - i agree.
I'm skeptical of the middle east stuff, and would like to hear it explained. For so many of the new projects you see one or two renderings online, and without the diagrams to tell the story, we're all in the dark.
I've been to seattle and porto recently, and they're both amazing. I used to think that an oma project was about the idea and the diagram and the actual thing was almost secondary, but that's not the case in either of those pojects.
In the end, we might just be too used to it all.
, yes everything.
As to what's next, maybe this, or this, or this, or this. And there's always hope.
"they don't pay us enough to do good details"
-rem
ja, i like this thread. before reading the comments though i kind of had a different thought about what you meant. to me rem really isnt getting tired but the fact that there are so many oma impersonators out there does seem to say that his "style" is getting to be a bit cliche'. its certainly not because he has played himself out- i.e. f.o.g., its that so many people try to do what he does.
in relation to your linked thread, what i get from that is a clear imitation of some of what rem has done. as mentioned above- the cool casual kind of hippish way of doing things- no longer has novelty. the textiled interiors that initially drove me to love his work seems to be replicated in any new project.
perhaps its because half of our field has worked in his office or for someone who has(?)
also, in regards to him challenging himself, i think cctv is a way of doing that. i really dont think there was an awful lot of thought or theory behind it, but it shows that oma is not bound to do the simple programmed spaces/buildings. they can be formal and be very loud about it and can do it well.
Reenactionary architecturism is just slightly younger than architecture itself.
people were saying that flw was over the hill too when he was 63 years old...and he still managed a few nice buildings after that
is it time for happy hour yet?
There no time like the present. Cocktail of the 21st Centruy.
anti OMA:
OMA's take on domestic flexiblilty, 2005.
<<Delirious oma>>
I. how oma generates his unique social-arch culture
II. why oma became a school
III. why oma ran business successfully
IV. why you love/hate oma
V.....
Apurimac,
like your conclusion
ether, i'm intrigued by your anti-OMA image. i think it's spot on, but i feel really ambivalent toward it. it's sort of high tech looking (oma=low tech appearance, dumb details), eco-modish (i think it's safe to say koolhaas has not outwardly professed an interest in green design, at least in a technological sort of way), fairly ambivalently sited in its context (koolhaas for all his latter day formalism is obsessed with a larger notion of context), and even the rendering is slick (as opposed to koolhaas's "unsophisticated" collage style). for all that that image is doing (and i think it is doing a lot), it doesn't resonate in quite the same way many of koolhaas's projects do. still, though, i think it's a good representation of the anti-OMA.
The 'slick rendering' is a photograph of an actual building.
what building?
that lighting looks just like a max rendering. anyway, that doesn't really change my point.
No, it just makes me think about "unsophisticated" perceptions.
i thought that Gehry was the trend setter
more photos of the home delivery exhibit at moma.
to me the cellophane house represents anti pop culture. it is what it is and nothing more (in terms of ideas, not the technology employed). (to me) there's no post rationalization, nothing flashy, sexy, shallow/deep or complex/simple. and it's definitely not trying to capture any philosophical trend or zeitgeist.
the pre-fab house is not sophisticated enough to be OMA. on many levels.
you could easily say anything by OMA is also what it is. rem does not explain or theorise his architecture. there is no concept, no deep philosophy, just some logic about planning that may or may not have anything to do with what the building looks like, but very likely has lots to do with how its organised. that is not so easy to do and is why oma is quite remarkable even today.
there are lots and lots of zeitgeists today. probably there will be a few more tomorrow. thing about zeitgeist is that it is not really there. its just an artificial category created by people who feel comfy with boundaries. not a bad thing in itself but dangerous if one believes it is real.
like the story goes, a whale may well think the purpose of evolution is to make large aquatic mammals, while sharks think the omega point is defined by sharp teeth, and victorians very likely thought evolution was aiming to make victorians - when in fact evolution favors nothing but change.
same with zeitgeist. it is what you want it to be.
would be amazing if something came along that beat out OMA, but i dont see it yet. certainly not with the work in that article quoted at the beginning. i frankly see no connection between that work and OMA at all. if you are shocked by the work of the interior design type world i can certainly sympathise, but it is not OMA that is being copied. the architects who do the work in the article are just struggling to be noticed in the media-saturated world they work in and want to make stores that grab attention of customers, etc. that requires formal invention - which is part of the package more than actual attempt to be OMA-ish.
i don't know about this, jump. i think of all architects he very succinctly lays out the how and the why of his work. guys like eisenman obfuscate; koolhaas for the most part i think prides himself in a sort of deadpan transparency. books like delirious, s,m,l,xl, and content help clarify his position, but it is also evident in the buildings down to the detailing.
i still tend to believe in the concept of a zeitgeist even if it is at times forced. koolhaas with the wit of his architecture to me has a postmodern outlook (and i'm not talking venturi here). not saying that koolhaas can't adapt; he has shown that he is very capable of that. i just wonder a bit if his forays into hypercapitalism may no longer be a reflection of where we are as a society or perhaps the aspirations of a society. albeit i am writing this in america and i believe the challenges this country is facing are diverging from the hegemonic powers developing in asia and the middle east. big thoughts, perhaps bigger than myself to understand.
OMA at this point are just parodying themselves (in the same way that Rem said cities like Paris and Rome are parodying themselves.)
MVRDV does OMA better than OMA does, with more honesty, more rigor, less hype, less tongue-in-cheek cheekiness. Rem's ego got the better of him.
typical prefab, maybe. but the ideas the cellophane attempts to engage are far more sophisticated than any CCTV. the reason i posted the image was to juxtapose the transparency of it's motivation in response to some of apu's comments above regarding OMA's work. i'm not comparing KTA's body of work to OMA's only using the cellphane as a catechism to the ensuing conversation.
I'm too busy to look for it, but Rem once vaugely referred to a subtly gradual shift by saying something along the lines of 'I don't know exactly what it was, but S, M, L, XL was the end of something.'
I don't know if anyone has the exact quote.
I want to talk about your work since S,M,L,XL because the book is where my personal involvement with your work stopped. Could you say that S,M,L,XL marks the end of a sort of adolescence in your career?
I don't know of what, but it was definitely the end of something. You know the book was published at a moment of serious crisis in our office, so everything that happened since is part of the construction of a new office, the construction of a new way of looking at architecture that culminated in the founding of AMO...
. . . . . . . .
... I asked you before about S,M,L,XL marking a rupture in your career and you answered by talking about how the structure of your office has changed. But what about your architectural work? How would you define the relationship of your recent work with the themes dealt with in S,M,L,XL? Are there certain themes that you are still trying to work out, or realize?
There is, in current culture, a relentless demand for newness. But there are also certain themes in S,M,L,XL that were never realized but that would still be interesting to realize. There's also almost a degree of embarrassment because some of the themes have been partly realized by others. After S,M,L,XL I felt an obligation to do something new - it was very clearly imposed by that external expectation. At the same time, I wanted to resist that commercial pressure and — where interesting or relevant or plausible — maintain an interest in "old" things...
. . . . . . . .
Do you think S,M,L,XL was too explicit? Did you give too much away?
S,M,L,XL asserted the equivalence of things whether they were built or not. But it also gave many people access to our ideas. So I feel part of a very crowded field. Now we need new secrets
JEN: I want to talk about your work since S,M,L,XL because the book is where my personal involvement with your work stopped. Could you say that S,M,L,XL marks the end of a sort of adolescence in your career?
REM: I don't know of what, but it was definitely the end of something. You know the book was published at a moment of serious crisis in our office, so everything that happened since is part of the construction of a new office, the construction of a new way of looking at architecture that culminated in the founding of AMO. AMO doesn't stand for anything specific, but it could be Architecture Media Organization. OMA and AMO are like Siamese twins that were recently separated. We divide the entire field of architecture into two parts: one is actual building, mud, the huge effort of realizing a project; the other is virtual — everything related to concepts and "pure" architectural thinking. The separation enables us to liberate architectural thinking from architectural practice. That inevitably leads to a further questioning of the need for architecture, but now our manner of questioning has changed: first we did it through buildings; now we can do it through intellectual activities parallel to building.
-interview w/ jen sigler in index
whoa
Good timing holz.box.
Thanks.
"the pre-fab house is not sophisticated enough to be OMA"
I see a still life with apples and oranges....
The Cellophane House, and the Loblolly House before it, are addressing changes in the presently wasteful and snail-paced means of production and assembly of houses and other buildings: KTA's aim is thus totally focused on this. But, through their language of "scaffolds", "cartridges", and "blocks", KTA also designs with a certain sophistication (I would live in the Loblolly house in a hearbeat), and I really don't care whether it's more or less sophisticated than OMA's.
i'm not one to think that the burgeoning of a new generation of oma-legacy work signals the end of the older generation. one of the great benefits oma has provided for architecture design culture is that they've developed and taught a way of working that others can run with. now the oma-babies are teaching in schools, sharing their own particular perspective built on what they learned via oma. it's an expanding thing.
rem's not done just because he's taught others, it EXTENDS HIS BRAND.
KOOLHAAS---(to be sung to the classic Commodores hit -Brickhouse)
he's a kool---haas
Mighty mighty, just gettin' a little played out...
he's a kool---haas
His buildings are stacked and that's a fact,
OMA ain't holding nothing back.
he's a kool---haas
he's the one in the prada
who's struttin down the strada
The students love him ya everybody knows,
and here's how the story goes.
Verse:
1. he knows he got everything
a starchitect needs to get commission, yeah.
How can he use, the things he use
thaat hyper-rationalism now thazz a winning hand!
(Chorus)
Verse:
2. The clothes he wears, the jet settin ways,
all the young kids sendin him their resumes
he's so kool and so real
who else could build a buildin that uses so much steel...
(Chorus)
Bridge:
Shake it down, shake it down now (repeat)
Rem (Sung to the classic ballad about a rat Ben by Michael Jackson)
Rem is a name that all
the architecture students know
Rem your rise to fame
has not been slow
All the world loves your style
you can make Charlie Rose smile
I ll work for you for free just say when
you got a devotee in me
oh Rem
Rem, you're always running to and fro
irony and intricicacy an ebb and flow
no you never look behind
your reputation climbs and climbs
now i don't want to be an archidork
but will you please sign my copy of delerious new york...
(delerious new york)
you've got a devotee in me
oh rem...
Rem
you drove a train through mies's place
and decorated your building with his face
you spelled it out small, medium, large and extra large
knitting a world like madame du farge
people think youre gettin tired
i guess they didn't read that cover story in Wired
they don't see you like we do
i wish they would try to
and then maybe just then
they'd see the visionary that is rem...
rem always is famous for the blunt details in his architecture, but if you look at his buildings the detailing is very carefully considered.
in the sense that the pre-fab building is all about details, by nature is even defined by details i find it a shame that the pre-fab building is pretty much just an example of technology and has little to do with how it feels to be in the building.
on those two levels i find that particular pre-fab building to be a bad representation of what architecture can and should be. it is soul-less. no offense to the architects cuz i know it represents a lot of work, but as an aspirational thing i find the lack of sophistication to be an enormous shame.
not just as an architect, but because it represents a missed opportunity to sell an idea to the public. people don't give a shit about technology except as it fits into a narrative. and this one has none. THAT is what i mean by sophistication. Sophistication is not about being complex, it is not about being erudite, nor does it require lots of education. BUT IT DOES NEED DEPTH. and the anti-oma building is pretty shallow. neat. but shallow. a one-liner.
i think you can find lots of evidence that rem does not really try to apply his own theories to his buildings. he has often and happily even done things that fly in the face of his writings. when asked about this he says he doesn't feel any obligation to live within the confines of his prose. artificial limits i think are not something he cares for, even the ones he makes himself.
i find the idea that mvrdv is better at doing OMA work than OMA. very interesting. i don't agree, but i have heard it before. very curious. there is a kind of contradiction in there. rem and oma were once the goal but then they let things go and so the heirs to his early work are continuing in the correct vein? it sounds very protestant vs. catholic to me. mvrdv are the lutheran correction to excess of the oma papacy under the nasty medici-pope?
Quite a fascinating comparison, but in my opinion we don't have quite that kind of hindsight yet. Like jump, I've found that MVRDV (or Xaveer de Geyter, etc.) have thus far fallen short of Rem's genius at the helm of OMA.
The sun will finally set on OMA/AMO if Koolhaas becomes risk-averse.
How many other architects actually seek out the risk? It is indeed Koolhaas' continual seeking-out-the-risk that sets Koolhaas as an architectural designer apart. The "envelop" really doesn't get pushed without taking a risk, and Koolhaas knows that full well.
Apropos, I cannot think of riskier work of architecture than CCTV.
risk : 1. exposure to the chance of injury or loss; a hazard or dangerous chance
But doesn't anyone feel that OMA has become a bit bloated? That they accept projects that may in theory have possibilities, but end up being just cynical, tongue-in-cheek riffs (e.g. the Guggenheim Las Vegas.)
MVRDV hasn't had nearly the level of international commissions or attention. But that has allowed them to develop a very rich and interesting body of work—work that includes little houses and smaller projects. There's a laboratory quality to MVRDV that seems to have disappeared a bit from OMA. Maybe that's because, as OMA has grown, Rem's ability to be involved in every project has diminished. And the scale and hype of the projects has grown to the point where they can't even be looked at as buildings any more, but as some sort of hyper-media-phenomena.
On the other hand, the sheer theoretical genius of OMA seems unparalleled, when he's in control of OMA's output.
The Guggenheim Las Vegas was a risk in a town that is all about risk. Apropos again, contextual even.
I find it disappointing that MVRDV has stayed so close to OMA in their development. They seem to be caught a SMLXL era OMA mode, and their work has become repetitive.
Comparatively, foa and big have managed to step beyond the oma sphere a bit and have found their own directions.
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