Some classic Nicolai Ouroussoff-piece - so expect an up-and-too-close-personal portrait, explicit hints of retro-active admiration, generic and gullible phrasing, all-over-the-place platitudes and creepy catchphrases - on Rem Koolhaas. Worth a read, but only for the quotes.

For those that do not like to read long ramblings. Here are Rem Koolhaas's most important words:

“I’ve absolutely never thought about money or economic issues,” Koolhaas said. “But as an architect I think this is a strength. It allows me to be irresponsible and to invest in my work.”

“There were two kinds of ’60s,” he said to me. “One was avant-garde, highly modernist— Antonioni, Yves Klein. The other was the Anglo-Saxon, hippie-ish, political side. I associated with the avant-garde tendency.”

“Change tends to fill people with this incredible fear,” Koolhaas said as we sat in his Rotterdam office flipping through an early mock-up of his latest book. “We are surrounded by crisismongers who see the city in terms of decline. I kind of automatically embrace the change. Then I try to find ways in which change can be mobilized to strengthen the original identity. It’s a weird combination of having faith and having no faith.”

The countryside has become “more volatile than the accelerated city,” Koolhaas writes in one of the mock-ups. “A world formerly dictated by the seasons is now a toxic mix of genetic experiment, industrial nostalgia [and] seasonal immigration.”

It’s hard to know whether you regard this as nightmare or opportunity, I tell him. “That has been my entire life story,” Koolhaas said, “Running against the current and running with the current. Sometimes running with the current is underestimated. The acceptance of certain realities doesn’t preclude idealism. It can lead to certain breakthroughs.”

All the rest of the article is slightly nerve-wrecking Nicolai Ouroussoff, so a bit constipated and adoring at the same time. As ever. Basically he tries to prove that Rem Koolhaas is the World's Most Controversial Architect. Any comments? List your own controversial architect below.