Rem Koolhaas Books

This collection is a look through the microscope at the real fundamentals of our buildings, revealing the essential design techniques used by any architect, anywhere, anytime. Conceived by Rem Koolhaas and made with the Harvard Graduate School of Design, it is a primordial toolkit to understanding how seemingly stable elements are actually in…

Rem Koolhaas untersucht in seinem neuesten Forschungsprojekt die rasanten, oft verborgenen Veränderungen in weitläufigen, nicht-urbanen Regionen der Erde. Diese ländlichen Gebiete, die 98% der Erdoberfläche ausmachen, sind stark von Klimawandel, ökologischer Zerstörung, Migration, Technologie und demografischen Verwerfungen betroffen. Zunehmend unter einem 'kartesischen' Regime, das auf maximale Produktion ausgelegt ist, verändern sich diese Regionen bis zur Unkenntlichkeit. Der Band versammelt Essays über Orte, die globalen Kräften besonders ausgesetzt sind, jedoch oft am Rande unseres Bewusstseins existieren. Beispiele sind ein Testgelände in der Nähe von Fukushima für Roboter in der Landwirtschaft, eine Stadt aus Gewächshäusern in den Niederlanden, der abtauende Permafrost in Zentralsibirien, Flüchtlinge in sterbenden deutschen Dörfern, Berggorillas in Uganda und die Transformation chinesischer Dörfer in Produktionsstätten. Diese Publikation ist das offizielle Begleitbuch zur Ausstellung im Guggenheim-Museum in New York und markiert ein neues Forschungsgebiet für Koolhaas. Die handliche Publikation, gestaltet von Irma Boom, dokumentiert die gemeinsame Forschungsarbeit von AMO, Koolhaas und Studenten verschiedener Universitäten. Autoren sind unter anderem Samir Bantal, Janna Bystrykh und Troy Conrad Therrien.

Eine Nation zog in den Krieg, eroberte einen Kontinent und wurde durch Atombomben zerstört. Die Sieger zwangen den Besiegten die Demokratie auf. Für eine Gruppe angehender Architekten, Künstler und Designer war diese schwere Zeit eine Inspirationsquelle. Unter der Leitung eines Visionärs arbeiteten sie zusammen, um ihren Traum zu verwirklichen, unterstützt von einer kreativen Bürokratie und einem aktivistischen Staat. Nach 15 Jahren der Inkubation überraschten sie die Welt mit einer neuen Architektur, dem Metabolismus, der eine radikale Umgestaltung des Landes zum Ziel hatte. Zeitungen und Medien machten die Architekten zu modernen Helden. Durch harte Arbeit und Disziplin wurde Japan zu einem leuchtenden Vorbild. Als die Ölkrise das Ende des Westens einläutete, verbreiteten sich die Architekten weltweit und definierten eine post-westliche Ästhetik. Interviews mit den überlebenden Mitgliedern der Metabolismus-Bewegung, die sich 1960 in Tokio formierte, bieten Einblicke in Japans Architekturgeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts. Von der kolonialen Mandschurei bis zum zerstörten Japan nach dem Krieg zeigen sie die Gründung der Metabolisten, den Aufstieg Kisho Kurokawas und die Höhepunkte des Metabolismus. Das Ergebnis ist eine lebendige Dokumentation, die Architektur als öffentliche Angelegenheit darstellt.

In this completely revised and up-to-date edition, the world's most accomplished architects -- Gehry, Pei, Meier, Nouvel, Piano, and 37 more-express their views on creativity, inspiration, and legacy in this visually stunning, one-of-a-kind collection. The Pritzker Prize is the most prestigious international prize for architecture. Architect includes all 42 recipients of the Pritzker Prize, and captures in pictures and their own words their awe-inspiring achievements. Organized in reverse chronological order by laureate each chapter features four to six of the architect's major works, including museums, libraries, hotels, places of worship, and more. The text, culled from notebooks, interviews, articles, and speeches illuminates the architects' influences and inspirations, personal philosophy, and aspirations for his own work and the future of architecture. The book includes More than 1000 stunning photographs, blueprints, sketches, and CAD drawings. Architect offers an unprecedented view into the minds of some of the most creative thinkers, dreamers, and builders of the last three decades and reveals that buildings are political, emotional, and spiritual.

Since the beginning of the century, the field of architecture has fervently turned its attention to documenting the contemporary urban condition. Every city been has been examined as a repository of architectural concepts. Every city has been scrutinized as an urban manifesto. Every city has been recorded as a series of found objects. The Ordinary articulates a potential genealogy for this practice, and for the genre of books that derived from it. Organized around three conversations with the authors of seminal texts that documented the city--Denise Scott Brown on Learning from Las Vegas (1972), Rem Koolhaas on Delirious New York (1978), and Yoshiharu Tsukamoto on Made in Tokyo (2001)--this volume traces the history of these books on cities by examining the material they recorded, the findings they established, the arguments they advanced, and the projects they promoted. These conversations also question the assumptions underlying this practice, and whether in its ubiquity it still remains a space of opportunity.

In this fanciful volume, Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, founder of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (O.M.A.), both analyzes and celebrates New York City. By suggesting the city as the site for an infinite variety of human activities and events--both real and imagined--the essence of the metropolitan lifestyle, its "culture of congestion" and its architecture are revealed in a brilliant new light. "Manhattan," Koolhaas writes, "is the 20th century's Rosetta stone . . . occupied by architectural mutations (Central Park, the Skyscraper), utopian fragments (Rockefeller Center, the U.N. Building), and irrational phenomena (Radio City Music Hall)." Filled with fascinating facts, as well as photographs, postcards, maps, watercolors, and drawings, the vibrancy of Koolhaas's poignant exploration of Gotham equals the heady, frenetic energy of the city itself. Anyone who loves New York will want to own this book.

S,M,L,XL presents a selection of the remarkable visionary design work produced by the Dutch firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture (O.M.A.) and its acclaimed founder, Rem Koolhaas, in its first twenty years, along with a variety of insightful, often poetic writings. The inventive collaboration between Koolhaas and designer Bruce Mau is a graphic overture that weaves together architectural projects, photos and sketches, diary excerpts, personal travelogues, fairy tales, and fables, as well as critical essays on contemporary architecture and society. The book's title is also its framework: projects and essays are arranged according to scale. While Small and Medium address issues ranging from the domestic to the public, Large focuses on what Koolhaas calls "the architecture of Bigness." Extra-Large features projects at the urban scale, along with the important essay "What Ever Happened to Urbanism?" and other studies of the contemporary city. Running throughout the book is a "dictionary" of an adventurous new Koolhaasian language -- definitions, commentaries, and quotes from hundreds of literary, cultural, artistic, and architectural sources.

Discover the Civitates orbis terrarum, a vintage jewel in urban cartography. Featuring town plans, bird's-eye views, maps and evocative city scenes across Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America, this is an unrivalled panorama of city living, and mapping, at the turn of the 17th century.

Hardback reprint of El Croquis issues 53 and 79.

Preservation is Overtaking Us brings together two lectures given by Rem Koolhaas at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, along with a response (framed as a supplement to the original lectures) by Jorge Otero-Pailos. In the first essay Koolhaas describes alternative strategies for preserving Beijing, China. The second talk marks the inaugural Paul Spencer Byard lecture, named in celebration of the longtime professor of Historic Preservation at GSAPP. These two lectures trace key moments of Koolhaas' thinking on preservation, including his practice's entry into China and the commission to redevelop the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. In a format well known to Koolhaas' readers, Otero-Pailos reworks the lectures into a working manifesto, using it to interrogate OMA's work from within the discipline of preservation.