Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas talks to SPIEGEL about the new Fondazione Prada museum he designed in Milan, the danger of turning cities into historical Disneylands and his desire to raze an entire neighborhood of Paris. [...]
Koolhaas: Before the 1980s, the decisions were made by cities. Since then power has shifted toward private investors. Nothing good has come of this for Holland. [...] I regret that cities no longer have money to even pursue a vision of their ongoing development.
— spiegel.de
3 Comments
This guy is so cynical. He readily admits that people would rather live in buildings with history (read:traditional) then goes on to worry about turning cities into Disneyland. Let me connect the dots that his ideology is blinding him on. Build more buildings and urbanism with those 'historic' qualities and maybe we don't need to be so precious about what little traditional fabric we have. He bemoans the sprawl between Rotterdam and Amsterdam, but is unwilling to engage with those trying to do something about it, because of ideology. So he contents himself with gold leafing a high fashion museum while rhetorically embracing the chaos of modern sprawl, making statements, and reveling in the disposable nature of the built environment... all the while living in Disney Amsterdam. He is the definition of cynic, but clothed in a progressive sheen, we all clap at his witticisms.
@Thayer-D: those seem to have been Spiegel's words, not RK's. Also, he lives and works in Rotterdam, not Amsterdam. Which is very much consistent with his view of architecture.
I thought his comment that we should consider preserving history rather than architecure was spot-on, and kind of rubs against the grain of much of the dialogue about preservation among architects. Where I agree with him especially is the idea that we should try to keep cities interesting, and even informative. Often that involves a great deal of preservation, but there needs to be flexibilty in that to keep it livable and real too.
Fair enough, I take back what I said about where he lives. His cynicism is still breath taking. Here's a quote of his...
"“The city is out of control; let us be irresponsible [urbanists"
So his criticism of the area between Rotterdam and Amsterdam...
"The area between Amsterdam and Rotterdam has been completely developed and connected with freeways lined with the predictable junk food restaurants."
I agree that it's lamentable that cities have so little power to shape their form and that it's so much in the hands of large financial groups, so why not advocate for change, why celebrate the chaos and call for irresponsible urbanists?
"Instead of expanding Paris, we said they should tear down every building there that was older than 25 years. The beauty of this idea is that you can create something better every 25 years."
Why is he advocating for the very predictable junk that get's thrown away every 25 years? Is that another clever There are a lot of his ideas that I agree with, but it's unfortunate that he isn't advocating for solutions. In the 1960's and 70's, when it looked like we could keep shitting on the landscape forever that might have passed for intelligent, but those days are over. With all his celebrity, it's a shame he's not pushing for something beyond being clever.
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