Six Canonical Projects by Rem Koolhaas

Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 5
Contents......Page 6
Acknowledgments......Page 10
Introduction......Page 11
Biographical Notes......Page 27
1. Wall: Exodus, or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture, London 1972......Page 33
Good Half and Bad Half of the City: Exodus, or The Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture......Page 35
Decision-Making and the Authority of the Plan......Page 44
Somatology and the Fictitious Entity of the Prison......Page 51
Deterministic Form and Flexibility......Page 54
Delimiting the World and Enabling Difference......Page 59
Taking Place and the Sacred Nature of City Walls......Page 61
The Closed and the Open Society as Ideal Worlds......Page 65
Nova Insula Utopia, or The Nowhere Place......Page 68
Urban Vacancy and the Disappearance of Public Space......Page 70
Reinventing Utopia, or Daily Life Beyond Necessity......Page 72
The Manhattan Skyscraper as Utopia Zero Degree......Page 75
The City as Script and Social Condenser......Page 78
Amplifying the Program within Structures of Control......Page 82
The Wall as a Means of Freedom Beyond Planning......Page 84
2. Void: Ville Nouvelle Melun-Sénart, Paris 1987......Page 89
Planning Makes No Difference......Page 91
Chaos and Nothingness: Ville Nouvelle Melun-Sénart......Page 93
Metropolis and Disorder, or The City Without Qualities......Page 101
The Watertight Formula of the Modern City......Page 107
Tabula Rasa and Prospective Preservation......Page 111
The Grid as Field of Projection......Page 114
Infrastructure and Kit-of-Parts Architecture......Page 118
Experiments of the Non-Plan and the Unhouse......Page 121
The City as Social Work of Art......Page 124
Critical Theory and the Architect’s Status......Page 127
The End of the Dialectic City......Page 131
The Operating System of the Roma Quadrata......Page 133
City Planning and Bricolage Technique......Page 137
3. Montage: Maison à Bordeaux, France 1994–1998......Page 141
The Armature of Modernism: The Maison à Bordeaux......Page 143
Architectural Promenade and Sequential Perception......Page 146
Dismantlement and Disappearance......Page 153
Between Modernist and Surrealist Ideas......Page 159
Transgression and the Accursed Share in Architecture......Page 167
Architecture as Paranoid Critical Activity......Page 170
Maritime Analogy......Page 173
Un Cadavre Exquis......Page 177
Metaphoric Planning and the Skyscraper Diagram......Page 179
The Metropolis as Manifesto of Modern Life......Page 183
Inventing Reality through Writing......Page 187
Post-Structuralist Theory, or The Whole, Real, There......Page 191
Montage and Creative History......Page 195
4. Trajectory: Dutch Embassy, Berlin 1999–2003......Page 201
The Wall and the Cube: The Dutch Embassy in Berlin......Page 203
The Pliable Surface as Inside-Out City......Page 210
The Car as Modernist Sign of Motion and Lived Experience......Page 217
Psychogeographic Mapping of the City......Page 219
Architecture as Event, Transcript, and Folie......Page 224
Historical Aura as Source of Identity......Page 229
Displacement, Appropriation, and Erasure of Identity......Page 234
Projecting National Identity, or The Typical and the Unique......Page 237
The Dioscuri Motif, or Standardization and Individuality......Page 239
The Typical and the Generic......Page 243
Junkspace as Dérive......Page 247
Generic versus Brand......Page 250
Typology and Flexibility, or Frame for Change......Page 255
The Trajectory as Diagram of Performance......Page 257
5. Infrastructure: Public Library, Seattle 1999–2004......Page 263
Structures for Non-Specific Events......Page 265
The Diagrammatic Section: The Seattle Public Library......Page 269
Stable and Unstable Zones, or The Event-Structure of Semi-Public Space......Page 275
The Dialectic between Needle and Globe Structure......Page 279
The Elevator as a Diagram of Discontinuity......Page 285
The Escalator as a Diagram of Continuity and Circulation......Page 290
Shopping and the Public Sphere......Page 293
The Technological Sublime as Social Event......Page 296
Infrastructural Techno-Utopias......Page 300
Public Space as “Air-Conditioning Project”......Page 302
6. Shape: CCTV, Beijing 2002–2008......Page 307
An Adaptive Species: The CCTV Building in Beijing......Page 309
New Typologies of the City......Page 312
Shape as Content and Container......Page 317
Plasticity, or The Dialectic between Form and Shape......Page 319
Post-Criticality......Page 323
Originality and the Avant-Garde......Page 326
Conclusion......Page 331
Bibliography......Page 340
Name Index......Page 357
Imprint......Page 370