Rem Koolhaas: Conversations with Students

by Sanford Kwinter (Editor), Rice University

This book presents a recent lecture and seminar given by architect Rem Koolhaas at the Rice University School of Architecture. In this compact volume, Koolhaas addresses the urban and architectural implications of extra-large construction, using as examples three of OMA's important large-scale the Zeebrugge Ferry Terminal in Belgium, the Tres Grande Bibliotheque in Paris, and the Karlsruhe Center for Art and Media Technology in Germany. Tackling questions about the difficult state of urbanism and modernism in contemporary Europe, America, and Asia, this slim volume forms a concise and coherent explanation of the theories and polemics of Koolhaas and OMA. This beautifully designed book serves as an inexpensive alternative and companion to Koolhaas's recent S,M,L,XL.

Genres: Architecture, Nonfiction, Design

80 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1996

About the author

Sanford Kwinter is a Canadian-born, New York–based writer and architectural theorist, and a co-founder of Zone Books publishers. Kwinter currently serves as Professor of Theory and Criticism at the Pratt Institute. He formerly served as an associate professor at Rice University in Houston, Texas, and has also taught at [link=Massachusetts Institute of Technology], Columbia University and Cornell University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and at Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
Having received a doctorate in comparative literature from Columbia University, Kwinter lectured at Harvard University, the University of Applied Arts Vienna ( Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien), the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam, the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London and the Städelschule in Frankfurt. Over the past twenty years, his publications have pioneered new ideas in art, architecture, science and the humanities. He has written widely on philosophical issues related to design, architecture, and urbanism, and was involved in the series of conferences and publications convened by ANY magazine between 1991 and 2000.

Reviews

[Park Frost · Rating 3 out of 5]

The brief text derived from Q & A with Rem Koolhaas is only mildly useful if you're at all familiar with his thinking, but its concise, easy to read and entertaining. Then there is the Sanford Kwinter essay "Flying the Bullet, or when did the future begin?" which is just... woah. Way out of left field be begins talking about air force operations, specific tactical plane maneuvers, etc. and it goes on and on and on further and further into me giving ZERO shits. Who's agenda was it to tack this onto here when it really serves no purpose to the "main" text that it manages to drag down with it? Awful decision making.

[victoria luciana vazquez · Rating 3 out of 5]

El último apartado titulado "Volar con la bala o ¿Cuándo empezó el futuro?" se hace un poco más denso, las analogías directas al proyecto de Koolhaas con el método de aviación de Yeager fueron, para mi, difíciles de procesar y entender completamente.

En líneas generales, igualmente es un libro muy dinámico, gráfico gracias a sus descripciones y super recomendable como lectura de colectivo o "bondi"

[Matcha Junky · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rem’s lecture and Q&A is your average contemporary architect ideology, readable pass time. But Kwinter’s article is a mess. Just a long rambling, dragging the fighter jet tactics and physics for comparison to praise Rem and his approach which is weird and overreaching. These rambling praise offers no substance or any useful information. It’s cringe to have seen a grown men simping this hard.