Rem Koolhaas: S,M,L,XL. No other architect puts more emphasis on not being an architect than the most influential architect of our times: Rem Koolhaas. In almost every text, interview, or lecture he makes it a point that he actually is a journalist. For him, writing a book is at least equivalent to building a house. And his masterpiece, the big, fat volume of S,M,L,XL, is purely architectural indeed. The way we read Koolhaas’ book is similar to the way we perceive Koolhaas’ buildings. A magic box of people and things, similar to the surrealist slogan about the unexpected encounter of a sewing machine meeting an umbrella on an operation table.
And unexpectedly it was that I had the chance to attend a public lecture by Rem Koolhaas at the university in Delft. He gave a preview of his upcoming book, and presented the text “Singapore Songlines”. It caught me full on. I cancelled my enrolment at TU Delft, which I had just completed on the same day, and applied at the university in Singapore. Six weeks later I was there.
I suddenly studied in a city that looked like the Le Corbusier sketches that our profs had always warned us about. High-rise slabs in serial construction. Only, in Singapore they seemed to work very well. The whole discussion about urban reconstruction was absent due to the absence of a city from the past. It was most liberating, and modernizing, too.
When I returned to Europe half a year later, I had a stop over in Amsterdam, and finally, I saw Rem Koolhaas’ newly published S,M,L,XL in the shops. Never before and after did I buy a book with such anticipation, and similarly had a book such a long-lasting influence. With this book Rem liberated architects from only publishing plans and photos. He opened the stage for personal investigations of cities, for comments on contemporary culture. He opened the door to the non-European, and even more so the non-Western developments of urbanization at a time, when the discourse and practice of most architects was still regional, perhaps national, but certainly not global.Rem Koolhaas: S,M,L,XL. No other architect puts more emphasis on not being an architect than the most influential architect of our times: Rem Koolhaas. In almost every text, interview, or lecture he makes it a point that he actually is a journalist. For him, writing a book is at least equivalent to building a house. And his masterpiece, the big, fat volume of S,M,L,XL, is purely architectural indeed. The way we read Koolhaas’ book is similar to the way we perceive Koolhaas’ buildings. A magic box of people and things, similar to the surrealist slogan about the unexpected encounter of a sewing machine meeting an umbrella on an operation table.
And unexpectedly it was that I had the chance to attend a public lecture by Rem Koolhaas at the university in Delft. He gave a preview of his upcoming book, and presented the text “Singapore Songlines”. It caught me full on. I cancelled my enrolment at TU Delft, which I had just completed on the same day, and applied at the university in Singapore. Six weeks later I was there.
I suddenly studied in a city that looked like the Le Corbusier sketches that our profs had always warned us about. High-rise slabs in serial construction. Only, in Singapore they seemed to work very well. The whole discussion about urban reconstruction was absent due to the absence of a city from the past. It was most liberating, and modernizing, too.
When I returned to Europe half a year later, I had a stop over in Amsterdam, and finally, I saw Rem Koolhaas’ newly published S,M,L,XL in the shops. Never before and after did I buy a book with such anticipation, and similarly had a book such a long-lasting influence. With this book Rem liberated architects from only publishing plans and photos. He opened the stage for personal investigations of cities, for comments on contemporary culture. He opened the door to the non-European, and even more so the non-Western developments of urbanization at a time, when the discourse and practice of most architects was still regional, perhaps national, but certainly not global.