Essay Example on Remment Koolhaas also known as Rem Koolhaas

Remment Koolhaas also known as Rem Koolhaas is a 21st century architect and is arguably the most influential of his time He even made it on the top 100 most influential people of all time However his work was also highly controversial It might be difficult to understand how architecture can be controversial but if anyone were able to find a way it's Remment Koolhaas What makes Koolhaas s work controversial but also influential is that he did not like to follow established conventions and he liked to break the mold with experimental styles This prompted some to describe some of his earlier works as infuriating In his career he has traveled hundreds of thousands of miles in search of commissions and designed plans for Paris the Libyan desert Hong Kong and many more places During his travels he has written half a dozen books It is arguable that what really makes Koolhaas so invaluable is not his work as an architect but rather his work as an urban thinker He was born in Rotterdam Netherlands on the 17th of November 1944 This year 2018 he will turn 74 His father Anton Koolhaas who died in 1992 at 80 years old was a man of many trades He was a novelist critic and screenwriter that was nominated for many awards for his work 

One of his short films even won a Golden Bear which is the greatest prize a movie can win in Berlin Koolhaas may have inherited that controversial nature of his from his father His father s writing strongly supported the Indonesian cause for autonomy from the colonial dutch When the war for independence was eventually won his father was requested to do a cultural programme for three years This was when his family moved to Jakarta in the year 1952 Koolhaas claimed I really lived as an Asian He also said It was a very important time for me Koolhaas also had architects in his family to take after His grandfather Dirk Roosenburg was a modernist architect and his cousin Teun Koolhaas was an architect and urban planner Like his father Koolhaas began with scriptwriting He wrote The White Slave as well as another unproduced script He then dabbled in journalism before discovering his passion for architecture beginning his studies in 1968 The first of Koolhaas s architectural endeavours to draw public attention was the OMA which was a group he founded together with several other architects Together they contributed to the Venice Biennale The OMA s contributions were the only ones to not employ post modern style architecture Several of Koolhaas s other early projects like the Parc de la Villette and the Kunsthal were also received critically though they were all unbuilt Many of the concepts found in those plans would later be explained in his first book Delirious New York Delirious New York published in 1978 has gained mythic status over the years It is known as A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan It sold out it s first printing on publication Manhattan he wrote is the 20th century s Rosetta Stone occupied by architectural mutations Central Park the Skyscraper utopian fragments Rockefeller Center the U N Building and irrational phenomena Radio City Music Hall It is three hundred twenty pages long His next creation was made possible by his position as a professor at harvard university in the design schools Project on the city Starting with the 720 page mutations and then the 

Harvard design school guide to shopping 2002 after that and then finally The Great Leap Forward 2002 All three of koolhaas s books involved his students analysing what other people may consider non cities Many critics have accused koolhaas of being cynical in the book European flag proposal After the treaties of nice signing in may of 2001 the at the time president of the european commission Romano Prodi along with the belgian prime minister Verhofstadt invited him to discuss the requirements and necessities of the European capital After all the ideas led to drawings and drafts they decided to include the barcode The barcode is used to unite the flags of all the countries in the European Union into a colorful symbol It was adapted to include the ten new member states At this point in koolhaas s life all his construction sites are in Beijing China That s including the Central China Television Headquarters Building and the new building for the Shenzhen Stock Exchange He has recently changed his office organization to a partnership Those partners consisted of Ellen Van Loon Reinier de Graaf Shohei Shigematsu and Victor van der Chijs Koolhaas is now the head of offices in North America Asia and Europe In koolhaas s life he has made a very big impression as an architect For good and bad reasons Remment Koolhaas is a truly iconic figure