TO EMERGE NOT TO PLAN
A VIEW ON REM KOOLHAAS WORK
Introduction
Remment Lucas Koolhaas (born 17 November 1944 in Rotterdam, Netherlands) mainly known as
Rem Koolhas is very well known architect, architectural theorist, urbanist and professor in Practice
of Architecture and Urban Design at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University
Concerning his academic background, Koolhaas used to work as a journalist at age 19 before
starting his studies in architecture in 1968 at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in
London. To this rst academic stage, a second one would follow, where he continued his studies
with Oswalld Mathias Ungers at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, which would afterwards
continue at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York City.
To this stage of his life, the creation of OMA (The Of ce for
Metropolitan Architecture) would follow, of ce he founded in
1975 together with architects Elia Zenghelis, Zoe Zenghelis
and (Koolhaas's wife) Madelon Vriesendorp in London. Later
on, the of ce was joined by Zaha Hadid, who would very soon
go on to achieve success in her own right
Thanks to his contribution at the Venice Biennale of 1980,
where with their one of their early works which formed part of the exhibition titled "Presence of the
Past”, the of ce would set apart from the then dominant postmodern classicism of the late 1970s,
as they were together with Frank Gehry the only ones to not employ Post-Modern architecture
motifs or historical references for their work at the Biennale.
OMA’s work in the Venice Biennale
From that moment on, a large amount of works would follow for the of ce, together with an
international expansion which has had as a consequence the creation of several of ces in Europe,
North America and Asia. Currently the studio employs 100 architects and designers, working on
numerous projects around the world
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On a personal level, Rem Koolhass received the Pritzker Prize in 2000, the worlds most important
architectural award
Besides his role as an architect, Rem Koolhass has also been a big gure in the world of urban
planning. Before writing several books about architecture and related topics, Koolhass had already
written several articles as a journalist on his early 20’s, however they didn’t had the impact his
books about architecture had
Among some of his most important books we can nd “S,M,L,XL”, “The generic city” or “Delirious
New York”. This last work, published in 1978 was actually his rst one which is considered as his
fundamental text, where he rst gave a hint on his point of view about how cities should be
developed from an urban point of view.
Delirious New Yor
Published in 1978, this historic novel written by Rem Koolhaas narrates the birth of the city of
Manhattan. Serving as a retroactive manifesto for Manhattan, this books re ects how during a
period of time where both human density and technologies suffered a simultaneous explosion,
Manhattan became the laboratory for the invention and testing of a new lifestyle: The city of
congestion.
After a dutch engineer arrived to the island of Manhattan
with the goal of having to design a grid using the city of
Amsterdam as reference, a series of events took place
such as the creation of the grid of Manhattan or the rst
elevator
Manhattan took advantage of this in order to develop a
city within the city, thus by creating the rst skyscrapers.
Before the invention of the elevator the idea of designing
a building with many oors was just a dream, as the
buildings were limited to a maximum of 5 oors due to the
limit stairs supposed
However some rst theories of stacking several oors in
order to make taller buildings already started to appear
As it could be seen on In uential Life a cartoon made by
A.B. Walker, which shown the idea of stacking
conventional houses on an open skyscraper with a metal
frame
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In uential Life cartoon
This cartoon was later rediscovered by Rem Koolhaas, who in his book clearly showed that he
ignored the thrust of its caption and saw in the cartoon’s picture “a theorem that describes the ideal
performance of the skyscraper: a slender steel structure supports 84 horizontal planes, all the size
of the original plot. Each of these arti cial levels is treated as a virgin site, as if the others did not
exist, to establish a strictly private realm around a single country house and its attendant facilities,
stable, servants’ cottages, etc. Villas on the 84 platforms display a range of social aspiration from
the rustic to the palatial; emphatic permutations of their architectural styles, variations in gardens,
gazebos and so on, create at each elevator stop a different lifestyle and thus an implied ideology,
all supported with complete neutrality by the rack.”
Approach on urbanism (and architecture
Together with the analysis and interpretation of this drawing, throughout the novel Koolhaas keeps
on analysing the way Manhattan got developed and it was here where it could be seen they way
Koolhaas understood the way of designing and planing the urban space
Besides this, it is also important to mention that one of the things that most of the people criticize
about Rem Koolhaas is that throughout his years on the architectural world he has be inconsistent
with his thoughts and has contradicted himself several times.
However, despite his contradictions there is a
unifying theme for his urban work, and it is the
idea of planning the development of a city,
understanding the past of it, and trying to
strengthen the original identity of it with the
contemporary architecture that he designs.
Fondazione Prada, Milano
As he commented on an interview made for an
article published at the Smithsonian magazine
“Change tends to ll people with this
incredible fear, we are surrounded by
crisismongers who see the city in terms of
decline. I kind of automatically embrace the
change. Then I try to nd ways in which
change can be mobilized to strengthen the
original identity. It’s a weird combination of
having faith and having no faith.”
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Rothschild Bank Headquarters, London
Rem Koolhaas really believes on the idea of establishing a dialogue between the existing and what
is yet to come.
Together with the idea of understanding the past, Rem also thinks that during the las years the idea
of traditional architecture has been lost due to the exponential use of new building technologies in
architecture. As he stated on an interview made in 2012
“The effects of globalization have been
positive and negative. My generation of
architects is the rst that could work
almost anywhere in the world. We had
the option to repeat the same
building everywhere or to push
ourselves forward, to create an
encounter between ourselves and
the local culture.”
Recognizable traditional architecture
Non recognizable traditional architecture
“This repetition I just mentioned causes
anxiety about identity. There is a natural
reaction from citizens and from
governments when their cultures are
not re ected in urban building projects.
This often comes up in the Middle East.
So many international architects make
it their business to be contextual. As a
result, their projects will feature doves,
camels, falcons and other rst-degree
symbols of local history
This issue is fascinating because if you
look back a hundred years, you nd
that there was still such a thing as
Indian architecture, Thai
architecture, Chinese architecture,
African architecture, Dutch
architecture, and Russian
architecture. But now, almost all of
these languages have disappeared,
and are subsumed in a larger and
seemingly universal style. The
process has been like the
disappearance of a spoken language
Remnants of these differences still exist. For example, a high-rise in Singapore is inhabited in a
very different way from a high-rise in the suburbs of Paris or a high-rise in China. Each of these
cultures, which once had its own form of speaking, is not trying to resurrect its old language, but is
interested in de ning and asserting its uniqueness again.
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However, in addition to these ideas mentioned above, Rem has on occasion hinted at the way he
understands urban planning and how he nds it interesting that this aspect of architecture is dead,
giving way to the idea of discovering something new and inexperienced, meaning a new beginning
for the city.
According to Koolhaas, in order to design it from the beginning, you have to do two
different things: the rst is to preserve the old cities and learn from their philosophies, and
the second is to laugh at the over-planned urban cities with all the high-rise buildings and
infrastructures because it is dogmatic and evasive.
This thinking hints at the fact that there is no such thing as
urban planning, as cities develop in an unpredictable and
con icting way on their own, and this makes it impossible to
establish any rules for each one of them. Somewhat related to
this thinking, if we analyse the essay by the dutch architect
"Whatever Happened to Urbanism?", Rem makes it clear
that in this situation where urbanism is dead, the idea of
planning is set aside and therefore the urban planner is
free to be irresponsible, since he cannot be responsible.
This idea of being irresponsible would consist mainly in the
fact that as a consequence of having lost control of the city as
a whole, planners would only be left to perform surgical
interventions in the urban body, creating differences
through extravagance, but this would lead to the fact that
it would end up becoming a mess, therefore extravagance
would become the norm and would end up being
indifferent
Therefore, it could be said that Rem Koolhaas does not have a speci c point of view on how cities
should be planned, as his essays and theories cover a wide range of ideas that at times contradict
each other
However, if one looks at his written work and thought in its entirety, one can glimpse a series of
guidelines or ideas that the Dutch architect constantly maintains, among which are the following
-Understanding the past of a city, and trying to reinforce its identity through new interventions
-Unlike in the past where there were several architectural languages, today as a result of
globalisation everything has been reduced to a single shared and international language, which
can be limiting when designing a city in a speci c way (following an idea of the local, etc.)
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-Urbanism is dead and therefore we must try to discover something new and inexperienced, having
as a consequence a new beginning for the city as we might know it nowadays
Conclusio
So, after having seen the way Rem Koolhaas thinks and which are the bases of his theories, it
could be said that the author sees the city as a living organism which is completely unpredictable,
even if urban planners try to establish some guidelines for these to be developed
And it is basically because of this, that the architect has suggested more than once that, as the role
of the urban planner seems to be dead due to the way cities develop theirselves without taking into
consideration maybe it is time to reinvent the way urban planners should act when approaching the
development of a city.
From my point of view this idea Rem proposes of somehow being irresponsible could be
interesting as it would lead to developments of cities that would follow a pattern never seen before.
This idea of making individual interventions which would be completely different from one another
would have as a result cities that would show completely different and random patterns, giving
some kind of uniqueness and character to the city itself.
However if not done properly this could also lead to some major disasters, as when acting on such
a big area as a city without following some guidelines, if those interventions were more perjudicial
than bene cial for the city.
If we compare it to the functioning of any
living organism, composed of different
organs, some of them vital and others not
so much, in the event that a non-vital one
fails, the body can continue to function
almost in full condition, while if it is a vital
one that fails it can have serious
consequences, even leading to death
Something like this could be seen in this
idea, each building would have a different
function, character and behaviour for the
city, and could be of greater or lesser
importance, but in the case that any of
these "surgical interventions" mentioned
by Rem were badly executed, it would
probably lead to the death of this city and
therefore this idea would be a failure
Therefore, it is quite clear that, despite
seeming easy at rst, since it encourages
us to be a little irresponsible and
experiment in a certain way, this way of
acting is more complex than it seems,
since at the end of the day, no matter how
individualised the interventions are, if one
of them fails, it can lead to cancer for the
rest of the city, and if it is not cured in time,
it can lead to the collapse of the whole
city
CCTV Headquarters, China
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So probably a combination of the way urban planning works actually and how Rem thinks it could
work would be a better idea. By establishing some basic guidelines which could reduce the risk of
collapse just as it would happen with a medicine on our organisms, this way of letting the city get
developed with individual interventions would probably work and lead to great results.
Nevertheless, even if it worked another aspect
of this model of urban planning should be
pointed, the uniqueness of each one of the
cities. From a city’s character standpoint, this
approach would be effective to create new and
original cities, but as it tends to happen with
everything, the act of repetition would generate
a custom, followed by establishment of a norm
and thus even if original and individualized on
its basis, it would lead to creating another model
of urban planning which would lose its main
The Interlace, Singapore
aspect, the uniqueness of each one of the cities
This brings us back to the previous point, to the necessity of having to establish a basis for cities to
develop in a "safe" way. By establishing this series of parameters or basic rules to follow, all these
cities that seek to be original and have their own character would continue to share bases that in
some way would prevent them from being completely independent and completely different from
one another, since at their roots they would continue to be the same
And it is here that I believe the key to making this model of city development work and be
interesting lies. In the case of establishing a basis for the secure and ineffable development of
these cities, the only one that would be original would be the rst one. On the other hand, if risks
were taken, and given free rein, this could lead to totally individualised and original cities, but of
course this is complicated because most of the agents involved in this type of intervention
generally prefer to act in a safe manner rather than face risks, which at the scale at which they act
can have catastrophic consequences
So all in all everything gets reduced to one question,
are we ready to take the risk and become irresponsible
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Ander Llama
Bibliograph
https://gulcehalici.wordpress.com/2020/05/06/theory-of-architecture/
https://urbanchoreography.net/tag/rem-koolhaas/
https://ivypanda.com/essays/incompatible-positions/
https://demirelsimay.wordpress.com/2020/06/13/1090/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/why-is-rem-koolhaas-the-worlds-most-controversialarchitect-18254921/
https://urbanchoreography.net/2011/08/14/strelka-institute-urban-design-vs-dystopia-rem-koolhaas/
Book
Delirious New York, Rem Koolhaa
Whatever happened to urbanism, Rem Koolhaa
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S,M,L,XL, Rem Koolhaa