“A building has at least two lives - the one imagined by its maker and the life it lives afterward - and they are never the same.” TwoBuildingMakersTwo Lives Author:Rem Koolhaas
“Architects work in two ways. One is to respond precisely to a client's needs or demands. Another is to look at what the client asks and reinterpret it.” WayNeedsLooksTwoAsksDemandArchitectClientsTwo Ways Author:Rem Koolhaas
“Miami Beach is a completely interesting hybrid because it is, on the one hand, a resort and, on the other hand, a real city. This condition of city and water on two sides I think is really amazing. And in the heart of that city, it has put an enormous convention center, an enormous physical presence.” ThinkingHeartTwoRealHandsSidesWaterInterestingCitiesConditionsEnormousBeachConventionsResortsTwo SidesMiamiHybridReally AmazingMiami Beach Author:Rem Koolhaas
“The Grid makes the history of architecture and all previous lessons of urbanism irrelevant. It forces Manhattan's builders to develop a new system of formal values, to invent strategies for the distinction of one block from another. The Grid's two-dimensional discipline also creates undreamt-of freedom for three-dimensional anarchy. The Grid defines a new balance between control and de-control in which the city can be at the same time ordered and fluid, a metropolis of rigid chaos.” TwoValuesThreeForceCitiesBalanceDisciplineLessonsStrategyChaosArchitectureBlockDistinctionAnarchyFormalIrrelevantFluidManhattanBuilderGridsMetropolis Author:Rem Koolhaas
“There are essentially two possibilities. One is to be, shall we say, an average architect and do the same thing everywhere. The other is to let yourself be inspired and even changed by the unique qualities of the place where you're building. We always try to take the second approach.” TryingTwoQualityPossibilityChangedBuildingApproachUniqueInspiredAverageArchitectBe Inspired Author:Rem Koolhaas
“We discovered a person in Lagos who had a fish stall, and within a single square metre she carried two children all the way to Harvard. She supported an unbelievable escape of her children into education. In that sense it was a city completed pixillated, and every pixel contained amazing stories.” WayChildrenPersonsTwoStoriesCitiesFishesSquaresUnbelievableHarvardPixels Author:Rem Koolhaas
“The thing is that I have a really intense, almost compulsive need to record. But it doesn't end there, because what I record is somehow transformed into a creative thing. There is a continuity. Recording is the beginning of a conceptual production. I am somehow collapsing the two - recording and producing - into a single event.” NeedsTwoEndsCreativeRecordsEventsProductionsIntenseTransformedContinuity Author:Rem Koolhaas
