REM

KOOLHAAS

Carson Russell

early years

Remment (often truncated to Rem) Lucas

Koolhaas was born in Rotterdam (Netherlands)
on November 17th, 1944. He was born to Anton
Koolhaas, a novelist, critic, and screenwriter,
and Selinde Pietertje Roosenburg. His
father received moderate success with two
documentary films (for which he wrote the
scenarios) that were nominated for an Academy
Award for Documentary Feature. His maternal
grandfather was Dirk Roosenburg; a modernist
architect. Throughout his life, Koolhaas and
his family lived in Rotterdam (1944-1946),
Amsterdam (1946-1952), and Jakarta (19521955). His father was supportive of the
Indonesian revolution against the Dutch. After
the Indonesians achieved their independence,
he (and his family) were invited to move to
Jakarta and run a cultural program for a few
years. Koolhaas once noted:
It was a very important age for me, I really
lived as an Asian.

background

early years

Rems first education was in script writing at

the Netherlands Film and Television Academy in
Amsterdam, not in architecture. In his time as a
script writer, he co-authored The White Slave (a
Dutch film noir) as well as Hollywood Tower, a
script for Russ Meyer, American soft-porn king.
After remedial success in the field, Koolhass
became a journalist for the Haagse Post.
In 1968, Koolhaas began his education in
architecture at the Architectural Association
School of Architecture, in London. While at the
AA, he studied under Elia Zenghelis and formed
a strong bond. Together they worked on the
Exodus|the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture
project. After graduating, he furthered his
education at Cornell University.

background

OMA

In 1975, Koolhaas along with Elia Zenghelis,

Zoe Zenghelis, and Madelon Vriesendorp
(Koolhaas wife) founded The Office for
Metropolitan Architecture (OMA). OMA began
designing in 1976, and had their first major
commission in 1981, the Netherlands Dance
Theatre. The original design was modified
and the construction was postponed due to a
site change, but it was eventually completed
in 1987. The building received international
acclaim.
Apart from the theatre project, in the 1980s
OMA also designed a police station in Almere
(1982-85), a bus station in Rotterdam (19851987), an apartment block in Amsterdam (19851991), and a housing complex near Checkpoint
Charlie.
Video Bus Stop

background

OMA

During the 1990s OMA rose to even more

fame with provocative entries to a few major
compitetions (Tres Grande Bibliotheque +
Two Libraries for Jussieu University). Though
unsuccessful in winning the competitions, they
did achieve recognition in a few other built
projects, notably Villa dallAva (Paris, France),
Nexus Housing (Fukuoka, Japan), and the
Kunsthal (Rotterdam, Netherlands).

Tres Grande Bibliotheque

In one of their more memorable projects from

the 90s, OMA designed Maison a Bordeaux.
The project is a villa for a handicapped client.
The floor-plan is flooded with complexity, but
the most memorable part of the project is
the elevator system that moves a platform in
the core of the house between 3 floors. This
allows the wheelchair-bound resident freedom
of mobility within his own house. OMA worked
closely with Cecil Balmond (structural engineer)
throughout the project.

background

social setting

Neither those in the West nor those in the East

are free, only those trapped in the wall are truly
free.

The Avoval

Before graduating from the AA, Koolhaas

worked with his artist girlfriend Madelon
Vriesendorp, mentor Elia Zenghelis, and Elias
wife Zoe Zenghelis to design a project for
Casabella magazines competition for visions of
the city. They coined themselves Dr. Caligaris
Cabinet of Metropolitan Architecture. Their
entry was Exodus, or The Voluntary Prisoners
of Architecture. It is a dystopian interpretation
of cold-war Berlin, and the effect the Berlin
wall had on its citizens on both a physical and
emotional scale. Koolhaas argued that the
psychological and symbolic effect on the Berlin
Wall was infinitely more powerful than the
artifact itself.
As so often before in this history of making,
architecture was the guilty instrument of
despair.

Exodus | The Voluntary Prisoners

premise

The site for the project was London. In his

proposal, Rem tells a story of a city (Berlin).
He sees the city as divided into two parts- the
good half and the bad half. The bad half of
the city is constantly trying to escape into the
good half of the city. In an attempt to stop this
mass migration to the good half, the authorities
built a wall to separate the two. His proposal
is about using the inverse- to have a wall that
separates as powerfully and effectively, but
instead of despair, the wall is in service of
positive intentions.

The Allotments

Exodus | The Voluntary Prisoners

premise

And as in Berlin, this migration was countered

(but ultimately exacerbated) by a desperate
and savage use of architecture, the
construction of a wall. In the face of division,
isolation, inequality, aggression, destruction,
the wall operated not by a timid reformist
intervention into troubled social domains but
by providing totally desirable alternatives
in the form of collective facilities that fully
accommodate individual desires. Catalyzing
the ruination of an industrial and imperial
metropolis, the strip of intense metropolitan
desirability demarcated by the wall was cast as
a force of revolutionary change.
Felicity D. Scott

The Strip

Exodus | The Voluntary Prisoners

proposal

The proposal is to create a void in the heart of

London. The void (or the strip) has a wall on
either side. Its inhabitants are the voluntary
prisoners of architecture. Instead of being
trapped and confined by the wall, they are
protected by it. Koolhaas describes it as a
strip of intense metropolitan desirability [that]
runs through the city of London. This strip
is like a runway, a landing strip for the new
architecture of collective monuments. He sees
this strip as so desirable that all of London will
beg for entrance.
The strip is broken down programmatically into
a reception area, a central area, a ceremonial
square, a square of the arts, a park of the
four elements, baths, an institute of biological
transactions, the allotments, a park of
aggression, and the tip of the strip.
The Strip

Exodus | The Voluntary Prisoners

proposal

The reception area is where the inmates are

allowed access to the strip. The reception
area is characterized by the indoctrination of
newcomers while the other inhabitants obsess
over architectural proposals and refinements
for the strip. One of the pieces of the program
that stands out the most is the tip of the strip.
The tip of the strip is the architectural frontline.
This is the area where the strip gains new
ground. Its citizens battle with the citizens of
London for architectural space.
In a continuous confrontation with the old
city, existing structures are destroyed by the
new architecture, and trivial fights break out
between the inmates of the old London and the
Voluntary Prisoners of the Strip.
The Reception Area

Exodus | The Voluntary Prisoners

proposal

The other pieces of program are highly detailed

in his proposal. They range from a park that
emits hallucinogenic gasses that allow the
inhabitants to experience sequences of
emotion (note: although this sounds extreme,
Koolhaas details the existence of vertical air
jets that provide environmental protection
above the pavilions) to a small reconstruction
of the Egyptian landscape (complete with
pyramids).
In his proposal, Rem details the character
of all the spaces through words, drawings,
and collages. There are eighteen drawings,
watercolors, and collages.

The Allotments

Exodus | The Voluntary Prisoners

proposal

The Tip of the Strip

Exodus |
The Voluntary Prisoners

proposal

The Square of the Muses

Exodus |
The Voluntary Prisoners

proposal

The Park of Aggression

Exodus |
The Voluntary Prisoners

proposal

The Institute of Biological Transactions

Exodus |
The Voluntary Prisoners

proposal

The Central Area

Exodus |
The Voluntary Prisoners

proposal

The Central Area

Exodus |
The Voluntary Prisoners

proposal

The Baths

Exodus |
The Voluntary Prisoners

proposal

The Allotments

Exodus |
The Voluntary Prisoners

thesis

Since his Exodus | Voluntary Prisoners of

Architecture proposal, Koolhaas (and OMAs)
work has largely been geared towards exploring
and trying to understand the larger processes
that determine social formations. As influenced
by his experience with the Berlin wall (and his
proposal) most of his built projects address
social and political issues, and most deal with
some idea of the edge. These themes are more
apparent in some works than in others, but his
Lille master plan (1989, Lille) and Byzantium
housing (1995, Amsterdam) exemplify this
influence the most.

Training the New Arrivals

influence

Byzantium housing

A transition between two urban antipoles

The Byzantium housing serves to join two polar
opposites. On one side of the project there
is one of the busiest metropolitan sites in the
Netherlands, and on the other, the Zandpad: a
quiet rustic lane next to the Vondelpark. The
project is the buffer (or void) between the two
extremes. In this project, Koolhaas tries to
negotiate the urban disparity between polar
opposites. The design tries to do justice to
both conditions by using the metropolitan scale
to screen the idyll. Here, again, Koolhaas
is interested in architectural complexity as
generated by a myriad of social and political
conditions.
Byzantium Housing

influence

Euralille

The Euralille master plan toys with the idea

that the experience of Europe will shift.
Koolhaas was interested in the shift that would
occur once the tunnel that links Britain and
Europe was completed. He saw Lille as a kind
of sleeping center of Europe, activated in the
middle of a triangle between London, Brussels,
and Paris.
In the contemporary world, functional designs
have become abstractions in the sense
that they are no longer linked to a specific
environment or city, but float and gravitate
around the place in an opportunistic manner,
offering the maximum number of relationships.
Again, in this project Koolhaas plays on the
inevitability of social evolution, and attempts
to design an infrastructure for it. He isolates
different programmatic functions and combines
them in a way that attempts to forge a new
social hybrid.
Euralille Site Model

influence

bibliography

Books
Articles

Websites

Perfect Acts of Architecture, Jeffrey Kipnis

Junkspace, Rem Koolhaas
Urbanism After Innocence: Four Projects, Rem Koolhaas
Involuntary Prisoners of Architecture, Felicity D. Scott
Rem Koolhaas, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rem_Koolhaas
OMA, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_for_Metropolitan_
Architecture

OMA, http://www.oma.eu/
Cold War Art, http://noyspi.com/koolhaas.html
Evil Can Also Be Beautiful,
spiegel/0,1518,408748,00.html

http://www.spiegel.de/international/