CONTEMPORARY WORLD ARCHETICTURE

Report: Rem KoolhaasInstructor: Dr. Khaled Adham

Students I.DRabih Mohamad Tahouf 201250697

Khaled Aref Reza 201250296

Ashfakur Rahman 201250439

Rem Koolhaas

Remment Lucas "Rem" Koolhaas is a Dutch architect, an architectural theorist, an

urbanist and a professor in the Practice of Architecture and Urban Design at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. Rem Koolhaas heads the work and is the founding partner of OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture), and of its research-oriented counterpart AMO based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He is considered to be one of the most controversial and influential Architects of our time. He has the tendency to shake up and overhaul well established conventions, expectations and common architectural ideas. Moreover, he is commonly known to surprise and shock people all over the world with his conceptual artistic ideas, which adapts to any kind of change that the world is currently experiencing. The theme of his urban work - is of big cities which are open to any extremes and any kind of human experiences. He is seen quoting: “We are surrounded by crisis mongers who see the city in terms of decline. I kind of automatically embrace the change. Then I try to find ways in which change can be mobilized to strengthen the original identity.” In this report, we are going to look over and discuss some of his buildings in three distinct regions; China, Europe and U.S.A. Through these buildings some of Koolhaas’ ideas and beliefs will be presented and evidenced.

China has been seeing considerable economical and metropolitan growth. As a result, this country has become the new destination for most Architects, including Rem Koolhaas. One of the most important buildings in China, the CCTV Headquarters is in fact, designed by him. In this building, one of Koolhaas’ beliefs can be noticed,

which is to kill the traditional Skyscrapers, as it is repetitive, lacks creativity, uninspired in form and competes only for the ultimate height while disregarding creative style. Consequently, Rem Koolhaas wanted to move away from the traditional two-dimensional and box like skyscrapers to a three dimensional geometrical structure, in form of a loop. This loop is supposed to symbolize continuity between past, present and future, and serve as a connection for the interrelated activities happening throughout the building; to make the different departments and sections of TV production operate completely together within the building. Just like mentioned

previously, he has the ideology to shake up well established conventions and clichés and so he did with the CCTV building. It surpassed expectations of what Skyscrapers are supposed to be. It moved away from the height-obsessed skyscrapers to a skyscraper with sculptural and spatial edge. This building -with its extraordinary form- which achieves the appearance of being both being powerful and conflicted, as it looks like it is being pulled from all four directions, represents the numerous functions of the building, and the changes China is currently facing, not to mention its current state. Rem Koolhaas used very few traditional Chinese ideas in the process of designing the building, to give it a sense of belonging to the Chinese people, breaking yet another skyscraper convention, which is basically, not considering tradition and history.

So, what Chinese traditional ideas did he use in the CCTV Headquarters building?

The blurring of the distinction between the inside and the outside is reminiscent of the Ming Tombs. (The gate of the CCTV tower is without any doors and is transparent).

An underground tunnel connects the CCTV building to the TVCC - the ideas of using an underground tunnel to connect different parts of the building, is also found in Ming tombs.

The two L – like structures are symmetrical to each other. Symmetry of structures can be seen in their historical and traditional houses.

Rem Koolhaas implemented another idea of his, but now into both the TVCC and CCTV buildings, which is the idea of cross-programming. Where he introduced other

TVCC building on the left The 2 L’s of the CCTV building

functions and programs into buildings, other than the main one which is TV programme making. Take for example, the media park which can be found beneath the open spaces of the TVCC and forms a landscape of public entertainment. The TVCC itself is a hub for public entertainment as it includes a theatre, shops and restaurants.Furthermore, Rem Koolhaas realized the importance of shopping, not only in China but also all over the world, and so for reasons in addition to cross-programming, he introduced the public access and shops to the CCTV and the TVCC buildings.

Rem Koolhaas is to a large degree a postmodernist architect, who also uses Deconstructivism ideas (also a part of the postmodernist movement). He used the postmodernist philosophy to design the CCTV building. For example, he made the two L- structures to be of the same size, height and design, this concept reflects one of the ideas of postmodernism, which is reproduction, reproduction of the same design. Furthermore, when Koolhaas designed both the CCTV and TVCC buildings, he intended from them to form their own community, or perhaps their own mini-city, through accommodating around ten thousand workers, in addition to, the consumer places (shops, theatres…). The whole site becomes a mini-city that involves vital aspects to it, such as finance, commerce, trade and information. Overall, the mini-city and the consumerism culture are all elementary postmodernist aspects. Other post modernist ideas he uses include reflection, the element of illusion, disorientation and the irregular angles. For the deconstructivism part, the whole CCTV building can be viewed in bits pieces; the two L structures and the top looks like an L, as well. Overall, due to deconstructivism, the visual logic of the building is hard to grasp, it’s shocking and surprising with its irregular shape. The building appears to be made up of creative abstract forms.

KOOLHAAS’ IDEAS AND WORKS IN EUROPEThe L shape structure seen at the top of the CCTV building

The influences of Rem Koolhaas have been truly significant and visible throughout the globe. An area of massive concentration in terms of his personal input is Europe; The Netherlands to be specific, which is after all, his country of birth.

To begin with, it would be a good idea to look into one of his most outstanding buildings which is ‘De Rotterdam Building’. This building took around four years to complete, and was opened to the public in 2013.

Modernism is not a correct category to which ‘De Rotterdam’ would belong to. In fact, thanks to the irregularity in the shapes and sizes of the different structures of the building, and more importantly, its non-symmetric character, it would be more suited to the deconstructivism movement.

Architecture in the Netherlands was influenced a lot by the ‘De Stijl’ movement, which advocated pure abstraction and universality by a reduction to the essentials of form and colour and simplified visual compositions to the vertical and horizontal directions with the use of the primary colours along with black and white.

Surely, ‘De Rotterdam’ can be clearly linked to the movement through the abstraction and universality theories, and also the visual compositions of the building.

Another fascinating design by the incredible Koolhaas is the Casa de Musica in Portugal. This building is basically a major concert hall that was built as part of Porto's project for European Culture Capital in 2001 but was only finished in the first half of 2005 after which it instantly became an iconic building in the city.

This exuberant and attractive building is very functional in the sense that it wasn’t just built to look stunning. Every aspect of the Casa de Musica complements the other perfectly, and hence, it was known as the most important concert halls in the last 100 years, according to The New York Times.

Innovative use of materials and colour throughout was another major factor; as well as the unique curtain-like glass walls at either end of the Grand Auditorium, the walls are clad in plywood with enlarged wood patterns engraved in gold, giving a dramatic kick in perspective.

Rem Koolhaas was made famous for his hatred of skyscrapers. This building is evidence to that statement and is a clear indication that buildings need not be tall to look good, or to serve a better function.

Casa de Musica

Still sticking close to the roots of the master himself, the final building that will be discussed is going to be the ‘Embassy of the Netherlands’ in Berlin, Germany.

This building, opened in 2004, was the main hub for the Dutch mission in Germany. The looks of the building may seem very deviant to many, but the idea that was behind its creation was to give it a post-modern feel and to propel it into the future.

Once again, the building is not a 500 meter tall tower, which is further proof to Koolhaas’s hatred of skyscrapers; it’s a small, compact and equally gorgeous structure that serves an important purpose.

What it really is, is a solitary building, combining requirements of conventional civil service security with Dutch openness. Traditional city planning guidelines demanded the new building to complete the city block in 19th century fashion, something that was not in the intentions of Koolhaas during its design phase.

In the end, it was situated in a way that it both completed the perimeter of the block, while retaining its solitude.

Certainly, the concept of functionality is not forgotten. The trajectory works as a main air duct from which fresh air percolates to the offices to be drawn off via the facade. This ventilation concept is part of a strategy to integrate more functions into one element.

KOOLHAAS’ IDEAS AND WORKS IN NEW YORK

Rem Koolhaas made the best use of modern technology and materials to create a new style of architecture which was completely different from the rest and far away from the conventional methods. His vision is having a world full of extremes and open to every kind of human behavior. In search for an ‘after architecture’, Koolhaas travelled to New York. Here he was commissioned for several projects. His works reflected his ideas, which searched for a link between technology and humanity. He did not rely completely on post modern architecture motifs and unlike the CCTV building he did not use historical references in the buildings which are going to be discussed (for New York). This idea of avoiding past styles brought an end to sentimentality.

His main ideas: asymmetry (again unlike the CCTV building), challenging use of space and unexpected use of colors, can be mainly classified as deconstructivism. This can be seen in his design of the Seattle Public Library.

Here, we can see the unconventional design of the building and the weird angles that Koolhaas used to make the building look different. Although the building received a lot of criticism, Koolhaas successfully managed to implement his idea of ‘function dictates look’. Also Koolhaas suggested an additional hospital room to this library for the homeless people of the area, which reflects his openness to society, and the ideas of cross-programming. But, this proposal was later declined.

Seattle Public Library

Koolhaas’ other ideas also include the domination of approach over style. His works mainly rely on the role of architecture in daily life. This brings him close to another class of architecture called customization. This reflects the needs of a particular site and the desire of the client. Koolhaas presented this idea clearly in the Bordeaux house, which was designed for a client in wheelchair.

In this house, he made an entire glass room that also acted as an elevator between the different levels of the house so as to meet the requirements of his client.

In his architectural forms, Koolhaas chose to engage directly with the modern world. This brings him to his context of urban modernity as seen in his design of the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum, also known as the ‘Jewel Box’, located inside the Venetian Hotel.

Here the urban concept is symbolized through the usage of electronics with different steel components. This also shows his keen interest in urban planning.

Another significant project of Koolhaas was the Prada store in Beverly Hills, which fused architecture into the world of fashion

The central space of this Prada store is occupied by a massive central staircase as seen above, displaying various selected items. This signifies the act to edit function and link to human activities.

Unlike other architects, Koolhaas did not establish a constant look from project to project. Instead, his designs varied greatly and his habit of shaking up established conventions gives his architectural designs a unique taste.

Conclusion:

Overall, Rem Koolhaas is a hard-to-beat architect in a league of his own, and one to whom we can assign a special category. For example, for the CCTV Headquarters

building, he used historical Chinese ideas, but for the Seattle Public Library (and all the buildings covered in the New York section) he avoided it. Also, for the CCTV building and Embassy of the Netherlands (in Berlin), he used and relied on both post modernist and deconstructivism ideas, but for the New York discussed buildings, he tried to move away from using post modern architecture motifs. He keeps breaking expectations, clichés and how he and his buildings can be defined. That is the trend which connects all of his buildings, according to our observations. Furthermore, one

Prada Store, Beverly Hills

more uniting theme he adopted for his skyscrapers, is the killing of the traditional skyscraper, just like it was discussed in the CCTV building and De Rotterdam Building. Through this, we can deduce that he dislikes the lack of creativity, the uninspired forms of buildings and the repetition of mentioned forms (box-like forms).

Another idea of Koolhaas, which we saw was implemented, or was planned to, was the ideas of cross-programming. We observed this idea in the CCTV building, in which he introduced public entertainment related shops in a building that makes TV programmes, and this cross-programming ideas was planned to be introduced to the Seattle Public Library, in the form of a hospital room for the homeless.

To sum up Rem Koolhaas in terms of his ideas and beliefs, he is an architect who likes to break well established conventions and expectations.

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