One of our theories is that one can offset this excessive compulsion toward the spectacular with a return to simplicity. Rem Koolhaas More Quotes by Rem Koolhaas More Quotes From Rem Koolhaas Any architectural project we do takes at least four or five years, so increasingly there is a discrepancy between the acceleration of culture and the continuing slowness of architecture. Rem Koolhaas discrepancies-between culture years Asia is still dominated by skyscrapers. I hope that, in European cities, it will become a declining trend. They were almost never necessary. Rem Koolhaas asia trends cities I'd say that my profession ends where architectural thinking ends - architectural thinking in terms of thinking about programs and organizational structure. These abstractions play a role in many other disciplines, and those disciplines are now defining their 'architectures' as well. Rem Koolhaas discipline play thinking In a script, you have to link various episodes together, you have to generate suspense and you have to assemble things - through editing, for example. It's exactly the same in architecture. Architects also put together spatial episodes to make sequences. Rem Koolhaas scripts editing together The acceptance of certain realities doesn't preclude idealism. It can lead to certain breakthroughs. Rem Koolhaas certain acceptance reality There is no plateau of resting or stabilising. Once you are interested in how things evolve, you have a kind of never-ending perspective, because it means you are interested in articulating the evolution, and therefore the potential change, the potential redefinition. Rem Koolhaas perspective evolution mean Sustainability has become an ornament. Rem Koolhaas sustainability ornaments Why I talked about political correctness: the colonial is now such a major taboo that any achievement of the colonial period, or any generosity implied in colonialism, is again fundamentally neglected or fundamentally not recognised. That's crazy, because history is a series of layers, and you cannot say, "This layer I support and this layer I cancel." History is history and you cannot retrospectively manipulate it. Rem Koolhaas generosity support crazy In this branch of utopian real estate, architecture is no longer the art of designing buildings so much as the brutal skyward extrusion of whatever site the developer has managed to assemble. Rem Koolhaas design real art We discovered a person in Lagos who had a fish stall, and within a single square metre she carried two children all the way to Harvard. She supported an unbelievable escape of her children into education. In that sense it was a city completed pixillated, and every pixel contained amazing stories. Rem Koolhaas squares cities children As an architect, I always have mixed feelings. On the one hand, your fingers are itching. As a human being, you are happy to participate in the indolence. Rem Koolhaas architect feelings hands Architecture is a rare collective profession: it's always exercised by groups. There is an essential modesty, which is a complete contradiction to the notion of a star. Rem Koolhaas groups essentials stars One cannot completely avoid this landmark character with large buildings such as these. But the city itself is also gigantic. Rem Koolhaas building cities character The Grid makes the history of architecture and all previous lessons of urbanism irrelevant. It forces Manhattan's builders to develop a new system of formal values, to invent strategies for the distinction of one block from another. The Grid's two-dimensional discipline also creates undreamt-of freedom for three-dimensional anarchy. The Grid defines a new balance between control and de-control in which the city can be at the same time ordered and fluid, a metropolis of rigid chaos. Rem Koolhaas block cities two When shopping was still connected to the street it was also an intensification and articulation of the street. Now it has become utterly independent - contained, controlled, surveyed. Rem Koolhaas articulation shopping independent That has been my entire life story. 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. Rem Koolhaas acceptance running reality We live in an almost perfect stillness and work with incredible urgency. Rem Koolhaas almost-perfect incredibles stillness Most old cities are now sclerotic machines that dispense known qualities in ever-greater quantities, instead of laboratories of the uncertain. Only the skyscraper offers business the wide-open spaces of a man-made Wild West, a frontier in the sky. Rem Koolhaas space cities men Prada is extremely directed in terms of communicating what they like and what they don't like. That is actually extremely pleasant because it clarifies very easily what you can do and what you need to do. Rem Koolhaas prada term needs But now sustainability is such a political category that it's getting more and more difficult to think about it in a serious way. Sustainability has become an ornament. Rem Koolhaas ornaments political thinking
