Koolhaas sees architecture as timid
Architecture should be more than an intersection of art and commerce. “I see architecture as almost a political work,” said Remment “Rem” Koolhaas, the superstar Dutch architect, touching on his signature ethos, his condemnation of architecture’s passivity and its inability and unwillingness to confront or resolve the socio-political complexities of urban life, problems often stoked by globalization. A bold, trailblazing architectural theorist, writer, and a professor of architecture and urban design at Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), Koolhaas spoke about a changing Europe and the ideas behind four recent projects in Taiwan, Russia, Qatar, and Milan, his “current preoccupations,” before a capacity crowd at GSD Tuesday evening. Sometimes compared with Le Corbusier for his work’s global reach, its rejection of nostalgia, and its enduring focus on the urban metropolis, the Pritzker Prize-winner is one of architecture’s most prolific and influential figures of the last 50 years. While there are many talents working in...