Rem Koolhaas in delirious metropolis: between Bigness and big business

Author(s)

Paolo Colosso

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2015-07-02

Examining board members

Celso Fernando Favaretto; Otilia Beatriz Fiori Arantes; Luiz Antonio Recaman Barros

• Advisor: Celso Fernando Favaretto

Abstract

Throughout his professional career, the fronts of atuation of architect Rem Koolhaas multiply between urban research, projects, higher education, curatorship and also partnerships with the fashion world. This work aims to reconstruct central landmarks of theoretical and architectural production of Rem Koolhaas on the called metropolitan condition, highlighting in this route - between the late 1970s and the first decade of this century - its guidelines. The research select key concepts, recurrent theses and paradigmatic projects, inserting them in the social relations in which they operate. The first chapter focus on studies on New York and, more specifically, the notion of \"Culture of Congestion\" developed in retroactive manifesto for Manhattan. Yet this moment, we show up the two vectors that will prevail in forged action model by Koolhaas, namely aesthetization and criticism. In the second, the attention turns to the \"Bigness\" -- the notion that becomes the guiding principle of this work - as architectural and urban response to the given conditions; and also analyses three projects: Terminal Zeebrudge, Paris Library and Congrexpo of Lille. The third chapter focus on various objectivations of Koolhaass ambivalences, mapping interfaces and feedbacks among urban studies toward undergraduation at Harvard Design School, his partnership with Prada in everyday life commodification and also the project for the Beijing Olympic Games. Finally, it is argued that the expansion of Koolhaas- OMA-AMOs practices is done under a collage technique, as spatial displacement and reintegration of elements - images, objects or propositions - in other contexts. This device allows keep together Koolhaas-OMA-AMO atuation, hiding the inconsistencies of their production, but not preventing the scission of Koolhaass figure as public intellectual. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 12/21502-1 - The Bigness of Rem Koolhaas -- and its ambivalences
• Grantee: Paolo Colosso
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master