Rem Koolhaas — Conversations with Students: Comprehensive Study Notes

Book Context & Publication

  • Second edition of “Rem Koolhaas: Conversations with Students”, Architecture at Rice 30 (1996).
  • Edited by Sanford Kwinter; design by Sze Tsung Leong.
  • Jointly published by Rice University School of Architecture (Houston) and Princeton Architectural Press (New York).
  • Photography credits: George O. Jackson, Sze Tsung Leong, Hisao Suzuki, Hans Werlemann.
  • ISBN 1−885232−02−01{-}885232{-}02{-}0; printed in the United States.

Preface (Lars Lerup, Dean of Rice)

  • Koolhaas foresees architecture eclipsed by the Metropolis, similar to Tafuri.
  • S,M,L,XL’s forthcoming scale (extra-large/Bigness) seen as a ‘temporary respite’ for architecture.
  • Houston labelled the “Lite City” – ideal laboratory for metropolitan experiments.
  • Re-editing the issue symbolizes Rice’s renewed engagement with metropolitan challenges; the book is treated as a mascot of architectural defiance.

Lecture (1 / 21 / 1991) – Rem Koolhaas

Architecture as a Dangerous Profession
  • Danger #1 – Pretension vs. reality: Name “Office for Metropolitan Architecture” sets high expectations.
  • Danger #2 – Debilitating complexity: Simple ideas (e.g., Paris house with floating apartment aligning pool + Eiffel Tower) exhaust office intellect for years.
  • Danger #3 – Mix of impotence & omnipotence: Megalomaniac dreams depend on outside forces & chance.
Core Notions in Koolhaas’s Work
  • Congestion as defining ingredient of metropolitan architecture.
  • 1990s Europe: economic confidence ⇒ explosion of scale ⇒ insertion of huge programs into historic contexts.
  • Return of themes analysed in “Delirious New York” now relevant for Europe.
Four Observations on ‘Mutant’ (Extra-Large) Scale
  1. Exterior ↔ Interior Autonomy: distancecore−skin→vast\text{distance}_{core-skin}\rightarrow vast ⇒ façades can no longer communicate inside.
  2. Internal Independence: Programs so far apart they become self-contained worlds.
  3. Elevator as Revolution: Mechanical connector bypasses architectural transition; ridicules compositional tradition.
  4. Sheer Mass as Affect: Bigness itself impresses, independent of design effort (cf. La Défense, Houston skyline).
Project Case Studies

  • Parc de La Villette Competition (1982–83)

    • Horizontal ‘skyscraper’ model: 40–50 activities spread like stacked floors to fabricate surface congestion without traditional buildings.
    • Reaction against Leon Krier’s nostalgia.

  • The Hague City Hall (1989)

    • ≈2,000,000 ft2\approx2{,}000{,}000\ \text{ft}^2 program forced into medieval centre → demonstration of impossible scale within history.

  • Zeebrugge Sea Terminal, Belgium (1989)

    • Response to Channel Tunnel threat; ∼2,000,000 ft2\sim2{,}000{,}000\ \text{ft}^2 casino–hotel–ferry complex on 2-mile pier.
    • Form: intersection of cone + sphere; continuous spiral ramps (trucker diner → luxury restaurant).
    • Two structural/philosophical options with Ove Arup: 42-month sprayed-concrete shell (fast, flimsy) vs. 40-year slow-cast authentic concrete (labor ageing with building).

  • Bibliothèque de France, Paris (1989 competition)

    • Five libraries (recent acquisitions, cinémathèque, reference, catalogues, science) = 3,000,000 ft23{,}000{,}000\ \text{ft}^2.
    • Site: 1500 × 750 ft rail yard on Seine; height cap ≈240 ft\approx240\ \text{ft}.
    • Concept: One cubic mass of storage; public realms carved as voids (absence-as-architecture).
    • Nine elevator cores pierce voids; massive two-metre service walls act as 240-ft deep beams enabling cut-outs.
    • Ground plane: huge plaza with ‘alphabet’ elevator-shafts as luminous signposts; visitor flow projected via moving letters.
    • Specific void typologies: horizontal hall (recent acquisitions), sloped amphitheatre (video), three-turn spiral (reading), egg piercing façade (catalogues), loop-the-loop (science).
    • Facades of variable glass transparency serving as ‘nature-like’ mutable screen.

  • ZKM Center for Art & Media Technology, Karlsruhe (1989)

    • Site mediates baroque core × modern infra (rails/highways).
    • Three axes: city connection, internal circulation ribbon, vertical panorama (roof view).
    • Structural system: deep trusses spanning wall-to-wall; alternate floors free vs. truss-filled.
    • Program stack: theatre → labs (2) → lecture hall → museum floors (2). Four peripheral zones wrap core: public route, offices, full-height tech tower, balconies.
    • North façade = transparent metallic projection skin; live lab content + circulating crowds projected outward.
    • Explores media’s paradox: infinite novelty demand yet perpetual hunger.

Seminar (1 / 21 / 1991) – Q & A Key Points

Houston Observations
  • Downtown radicalized: new towers + erasure of pre-1970 buildings; purity of isolated skyscrapers.
  • American cities reinvent visuals every ≈10\approx10 years.
‘Contemporary City’ Research (Houston, Atlanta, Tokyo/Seoul, Paris New Towns)
  • Similar urban patterns worldwide despite differing politics/economies ⇒ architecture’s ambitions diverge from societal desires.
  • Freedom from formal coherence; new forms of ‘glue’ emerge (gated walls, private security, commercial logic).
Pedestrian Myth & New Towns Experience
  • Paris new towns (Marne-la-Vallée) designed around pedestrian axes remain empty; walking often linked to poverty, not desire.
  • Architectural rhetoric (streets, plazas) fails when people refuse intended use.
Role & Limits of Architects
  • Power exaggerated for both good & harm.
  • Modernism scapegoated in 1960-70s, weakening profession.
  • Architects must reinterpret new public domains (media-driven, commercial) rather than nostalgically mourning their loss.
Planning & Governance
  • Danger of introducing heavy planning in cities like Houston: risk killing vitality.
  • Need precise analysis then ‘retroactive concepts’ instead of imposed nostalgia.
  • U.S.: Developer power; Europe: shifting political power – both produce jagged growth.
Global Practice & EC 1992
  • OMA model: Dutch office with only 5%5\% Dutch work; 30-30-30 split France–Germany–Japan.
  • Globalisation breeds architects more popular abroad; each country retains quirks.
Monoculture & Maturing Cities
  • Atlanta shows maturation; non-classical public realms still enable intense communication.
Social Conscience & Optimism
  • Europe ’92 myth spurs politically-driven megaprojects (e.g., Bibliothèque) where architects vital.
  • Optimism viewed as professional obligation; work seeks constructive acceptance of prevailing conditions.
Historic Cores & Tourism
  • Amsterdam being destroyed by ‘maintenance as museum’; uglier cities like Rotterdam hold future promise.
Architectural Education & Critique
  • Schools globally similar; U.S. more idealistic, Europe more cynical.
  • Post-Modernism judged defeatist; fear of grand ambition.
  • Awards culture judges taste, ignores vast ‘insane’ globalized architecture.
Void & Blankness
  • Valued as escape from over-signification; profession conditioned to fill every gap.
Congestion vs. Consumption & Post-Utopian Modernism
  • Congestion parallel to consumerism; need to articulate publicness amid electronic dissolve.
  • Koolhaas positions work as optimistic, aligned with modernization forces yet critical of utopian modernism.

Sanford Kwinter Essay – “Flying the Bullet, or When Did the Future Begin?”

Optimism = Danger
  • Koolhaas converts optimism into risk; serious architecture must desire danger.
Material Vitalism & Radical Optimism
  • Architecture must treat historical flows (economic, demographic, technological) as its true material rather than static geometry.
  • Optimism differs from utopia: engages inherent directional potentials vs. imposing external ideals.
Extreme Architecture Analogy to Aerial Dogfight
  • Chuck Yeager’s supersonic exploits illustrate ‘edge of envelope’ thinking.
  • Concepts transferred to architecture:
    1. See More Than Opponent – open focus; architects read emerging conditions rather than objects.
    2. Use All Four Dimensions – time is design variable; throttle = time control.
    3. Fly the Bullet – merge with tools; architecture acts as bullet meeting future trajectory.
Envelope Concept
  • Human-machine ensemble with elastic parameters; Koolhaas buildings act as tactical resolutions within historical flux.
Thresholds Identified by Kwinter (echoing lecture)
  • Congestion, European scale explosion, Bigness, Interior/Exterior split, Mass-as-Affect, Rootlessness.
Metallurgy Metaphor
  • Metals as arrested liquids; near-extreme states reveal hidden traits.
  • Architects, like metallurgists, shepherd flows to precipitate form.
Cybernetics & Action Potential
  • Urban ‘axons’ (bridges, parallel links) likened to nerve impulses; congestion becomes energy pulse.
Overall Argument
  • Future of architecture began with Koolhaas’s leap to extreme, fluid, tactical engagement; invites discipline to operate at ragged edge where optimism and peril coincide.

Cross-Lecture/Thematic Connections & Implications

  • Parc de La Villette horizontal skyscraper method prefigures Bibliothèque ‘void’ logic and later S,M,L,XL’s theorization of Bigness.
  • Elevator critique foreshadows contemporary core-based high-rise debates.
  • Sea Terminal’s two building-time strategies pose ethical question of speed vs. authenticity.
  • Media façade ideas in Karlsruhe anticipate LED/interactive skins of 21st-century buildings.
  • Houston observations link to ‘Generic City’ concept and later “Junkspace” essay (2000).
  • Emphasis on void, blankness, and refusal resonates with minimalism and programmatic subtraction trends (e.g., Herzog & de Meuron’s Dominus Winery ‘void stones’).
  • Globalised practice realities predicted the 2000s starchitect export model.

Numerical / Statistical Highlights

  • The Hague City Hall: 2 000 000 ft22\,000\,000\ \text{ft}^2.
  • Zeebrugge Terminal: ∼2 000 000 ft2\sim2\,000\,000\ \text{ft}^2; 2-mile pier; 42-month vs. 40-year build scenarios.
  • Bibliothèque de France: 3 000 000 ft23\,000\,000\ \text{ft}^2; site 1500×750 ft1500\times750\ \text{ft}; height cap ≤240 ft\le240\ \text{ft}; 60 % storage.
  • Elevator cores in library: 99.
  • Visitor target: 4×4\times Beaubourg’s attendance.
  • NF-104 test flights above 100,000 ft100{,}000\ \text{ft} (edge of atmosphere reference in Kwinter essay).

Ethical, Philosophical & Practical Takeaways

  • Question nostalgia: historicist reconstructions may erase real history (Berlin Wall/IBA debate).
  • Accept ‘other coherences’: gated communities, commercial realms – critique but engage.
  • Planning must analyse before prescribing; retroactive concepts can guide future without stifling existing energies.
  • Architecture’s agency lies in framing new spatial possibilities within forces of globalization, media, and technological acceleration rather than resisting them outright.
  • Danger embraced responsibly can revitalize architectural imagination; optimism without risk yields complacency.