The intellectual force of the West is still dominant, but other cultures are getting stronger. I expect that we will develop a new way of thinking in architecture and urban planning, and that less will be based on our models. Rem Koolhaas Read Quote
I’d say that my profession ends where architectural thinking ends – architectural thinking in terms of thinking about programs and organizational structure. These abstractions play a role in many other disciplines, and those disciplines are now defining their ‘architectures’ as well. Rem Koolhaas Read Quote
When air conditioning, escalators, and advertising appeared, shopping expanded its scale, but also limited its spontaneity. And it became much more predictable, almost scientific. What had once been the most surprising became the most manipulated. Rem Koolhaas Read Quote
The great problem of the concert hall is that the shoebox is the ideal shape for acoustics but that no architect worth their names wants to build a shoebox. Rem Koolhaas Read Quote
The luxury of our position now is that we can almost assemble any team to address any issue. Rem Koolhaas Read Quote
I think one of the important evolutions is that we no longer feel compulsively the need to argue, or to justify things on a kind of rational level. We are much more willing to admit that certain things are completely instinctive and others are really intellectual. Rem Koolhaas Read Quote
Our office acts like a kind of educational establishment and we are very careful who we educate. Rem Koolhaas Read Quote
It’s a weird city because the uglier the weather, the more beautiful the city. And the uglier the buildings, the more coherent the city. Rem Koolhaas Read Quote
When shopping was still connected to the street it was also an intensification and articulation of the street. Now it has become utterly independent – contained, controlled, surveyed. Rem Koolhaas Read Quote
We felt it was very important for an entity like CCTV to make its presence felt… To generate a space and to define a space, that is the main thing. Rem Koolhaas Read Quote