MARCO BECK PECCOZ; OMA
for thought – and to open an office to get under the skin of the Hong Kong situation – ‘the Chinafication of OMA’. Their proposals are based on three villages, with a big park which is ‘quasi-industrial rather than over-controlled leisure space’; Hong Kong is ‘relentlessly programmatic’ and ‘inspiration, technicality and pragmatism’ will be required. The Koolhaas aphorism
is in evidence: ‘This moment is the definitive death of the masterplan’, to which Norman Foster ripostes: ‘Long live the masterplan!’ Rem thinks a big issue is how you create an ‘artistic masterplan designed for artistic purposes’; he thinks in 10 years there will be a biennale based on graphic design ‘to clear the messes we leave behind’. He wants to know why no architect has appeared on the cover of Time magazine since 1979 (Philip Johnson), and seems to think this was ‘when we started using the word icon’. Rem never gives the impression that he is
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particularly keen on architects or architecture as generally understood. He famously remarked that the profession is hopelessly suspended between ‘megalomania and impotence’, choosing global workload, endless travel and unexpected initiatives as a route between. Needless to say, when OMA decided to run (through its research arm AMO) an architectural education programme, it picked Russia as the location. Together with his fellow director Reinier de Graaf, Rem presented the programme of the Moscow-based Strelka Institute in Venice. Of course, Koolhaas has
produced one iconic building after another because he and the practice are truly talented designers – but that is not what makes them so very distinctive. OMA’s unique place in the world of architecture derives from an absolute determination to think more laterally about the world, engage with ideas that have little do with architecture as a technical discipline, and to
The Architectural Review / October 2010 / View
Previous page_ The proposed frescoed wall of 13th-century palazzo Fondaco dei Tedeschi, for Benetton Above left_
Location plan of the Benetton site Above, top left_ OMA’s exhibition at the Giardini allowed visitors to tear off a souvenir
Above, top right_ Rem accepting the Golden Lion award at the Venice Biennale Above_ Interior of the Benetton proposal, with strident insertion of escalators
relish with deliberate cynicism the realpolitik of working with the wealthiest clients, the least democratic governments, the most extreme structural ideas. It wouldn’t be enough to talk about conservation – it has to be preservation. As the consequences of the consumer society became increasingly suspect, Rem naturally chose shopping as the appropriate area for investigation with his Harvard students. Rem’s understanding of the
world and its scripts, languages and navigation methods was all evident in his first groundbreaking production: Delirious New York, still an extraordinary read after more than 30 years. A decade after 9/11 and the architectural and political battles over what would replace the Twin Towers, would it be fanciful to imagine that Rem might embark on a third edition of his psycho- architectural-historical city exploration? Only he could do it – a prince of the city that, unlike Venice, never sleeps.
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