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Quote by Rem Koolhaas

“The beauty of my profession [architecture] lies in its randomness and surprise. And don't think I can choose my projects. I have to build what's offered to me.”

Quote by Rem Koolhaas

Author

Rem Koolhaas is a renowned Dutch architect, born on November 17, 1944. Known for his unique architectural style and theoretical contributions, his work has a widespread influence globally. more

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“I like fashion, whether or not it's overpriced, because it creates a sense of the sublime with relatively few means.”

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“All important architecture of the last century was strongly influenced by political systems. Look at the Soviet system, with its constructivism and Stalinism, Weimer with its Modern style, Mussolini and, of course, the Nazis and Albert Speer's colossal structures. Today's architecture is subservient to the market and its terms. The market has supplanted ideology. Architecture has turned into a spectacle. It has to package itself and no longer has significance as anything but a landmark.”

“In a script, you have to link various episodes together, you have to generate suspense and you have to assemble things - through editing, for example. It's exactly the same in architecture. Architects also put together spatial episodes to make sequences.”

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“One cannot completely avoid this landmark character with large buildings such as these. But the city itself is also gigantic.”

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“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.”

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“The architecture per se isn't at fault. The more important factor, in my view, is the political neglect of these areas, which have essentially been cut off from other neighborhoods.”

Important Political Views Cutting Areas Faults Architecture Factors Neighborhood Neglect

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“Let's put it this way: One can be happy or unhappy in a building. But some buildings make us more depressed than others.”

Way Building Unhappy

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“I do have a very conscious desire not to be academic. I'm antiacademic. I hate jargon. I hate that sort of pretension. I am a person who [commits] breaches of decorum - not in private life, but in my work. They are part of my mode of operation. That kind of playfulness is part of my nature in general. The paradox that, in a way, to take something very seriously, you can't always be serious about it.”

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“I do think of my reader, or listener, really, more often, if I give a lecture, for example, and I know that I'm talking to these people; I enjoy sort of preening them a bit. But it's a matter of decorum, basically.”

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“I hate ideologies of all kinds, so I avoid jargon. I've done enough philosophy to know that some specialized terms are really needed. I don't complain when Kant does it. Or when Aristotle introduces all kinds of new words; he needed them. But these other people [modern philosophers] are just obfuscating. It just makes me annoyed.”

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