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2000.08.09 14:28
Koolhaas' Seattle Library
As to the Koolhaas phenomenon, you may be a bit extreme in your assessment (even though "extreme-ism" is perhaps one way to explain Koolhaas). I know him and his buildings only through books (excluding seeing an OMA building in Berlin that Koolhaas may not have had anything to do with). I can identify with the "vagueness," but it is exactly that vagueness that gets him all the attention. Haven't you noticed that by and large people don't like direct answers when it comes to design solutions? (I realize I'm potentially going out on a limb with that line of thinking.)
Interestingly enough, I have met with two of Koolhaas's former partners, Elias Zengalis and Eleni Gigantes. From what I can gather, there is an unrelenting drive to be MODERN MODERN MODERN among the present European "stars". Ironically, I believe that Americans (of the USA primarily) are extremely MODERN, and most of the time they don't even think about it. Today's American cities are in a constant battle with their own MODERNITY, which I'm sure you know all too well. American cities are extremely assimilating (absorbing) and at the same time extremely metabolic (equally creative and destructive).
2000.08.09
Bilbao "Affect" 001
Ichnographia Quondam.
project: The Working Title Museum
site: east bank of the Schuylkill River, Quondam
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