Rem Koolhaas’s S,M,L,XL came out to fanfare in 1995 while we were in architecture school: a 1,375-page compendium inspiring a generation of designers to take on all scales and sources in their work. Harvesting unpredictable raw energies— from Japanese sex-manuals and tabloid clippings to Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling and Nolli’s plan of Rome— the tome’s effect was to swell like an unstoppable wave of possibility.

Twenty-five years later, Koolhaas’s 2020 exhibit, Countryside, The Future,* causes us to wonder where this approach is taking us. In seeking to prepackage the entire unseen world, Countryside’s excess of inclusion comes to feel like domination. Is the site of architectural discourse a real space where we encounter singular events that promote open dialogue, or a mediated environment of derivative content where conclusions are conveyed in supergraphics?

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*Seen at the Guggenheim on March 8, 2020 during the final weekend before museums closed in New York City due to Covid-19.

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Photography: Andreas Symietz  
Video: SLO Architecture
File Under: Prodding the Monuments of Architecture Discourse