Delirious New York Koolhaas's book
Delirious New York set the pace for his career. Koolhaas analyzes the "chance-like" nature of city life: "The City is an addictive machine from which there is no escape" "Rem Koolhaas...defined the city as a collection of 'red hot spots'." (
Anna Klingmann). As Koolhaas himself has acknowledged, this approach had already been evident in the Japanese
Metabolist Movement in the 1960s and early 1970s. A key aspect of architecture that Koolhaas interrogates is the "
Program": with the rise of modernism in the 20th century the "Program" became the key theme of architectural design. The notion of the Program involves "an act to edit function and human activities" as the pretext of architectural design: epitomised in the maxim
form follows function, first popularised by architect
Louis Sullivan at the beginning of the 20th century. The notion was first questioned in
Delirious New York, in his analysis of high-rise architecture in Manhattan. An early design method derived from such thinking was "cross-programming", introducing unexpected functions in room programmes, such as running tracks in skyscrapers. More recently, Koolhaas unsuccessfully proposed the inclusion of hospital units for the homeless into the Seattle Public Library project (2003).
Project on the city Koolhaas' next publications were a by-product of his position as professor at
Harvard University, in the
Design school's "Project on the City"; firstly the 720-page
Mutations, followed by
The Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping (2002) and
The Great Leap Forward (2002). All three books published student work analysing what others would regard as "non-cities", sprawling conglomerates such as
Lagos in Nigeria, west Africa, which the authors argue are highly functional despite a lack of infrastructure. The authors also examine the influence of shopping habits and the recent rapid growth of cities in China. Critics of the books have criticised Koolhaas for being cynical, – as if Western
capitalism and
globalization demolish all cultural identity – highlighted in the notion expounded in the books that "In the end, there will be little else for us to do but shop". Perhaps such caustic cynicism can be read as a "realism" about the transformation of cultural life, where airports and even museums (due to finance problems) rely just as much on operating gift shops. It does, however, demonstrate one of the architect's characteristic devices for deflecting criticism: attack the client or subject of study after completing the work. When it comes to transforming these observations into practice, Koolhaas mobilizes what he regards as the omnipotent forces of urbanism into unique design forms and connections organised along the lines of present-day society. Koolhaas continuously incorporates his observations of the contemporary city within his design activities: calling such a condition the ‘culture of congestion’. Again, shopping is examined for "intellectual comfort", whilst the unregulated taste and densification of Chinese cities is analysed according to "performance", a criterion involving variables with debatable credibility: density, newness, shape, size, money etc. In 2003,
Content, a 544-page magazine-style book designed by &&& Creative and published by Koolhaas, gives an overview of the last decade of
OMA projects including his designs for the
Prada shops, According to Koolhaas, such a city is "a reflection of present need and present ability. It is big enough for everybody. It is easy, it does not need maintenance. If it gets too small it just expands. If it gets old it self destructs and renews. It is equally exciting -- or unexciting -- everywhere. It can produce a new identity every Monday morning." ==Buildings and projects==