An interview with Dutch starchitect Rem Koolhaas was published recently in the German daily Der Spiegel. In the interview, held in the paper's brand-new Hamburg headquarters, Koolhaas rails against "assembly-line cities and assembly-line buildings, standardizing buildings and cities,” seeming to implicate the recent redevelopment of the Hamburg waterfront (above) as one such boring standard. The only trouble is Koolhaas is hardly an objective observer of this particular project, as his HafenCity Science Center went unbuilt due to budget constraints while designs by Herzog & de Meuron and Richard Meier went ahead as planned. So was this all fueled by some professional jealousy? This is a conflict the architect tries to explain away by saying, “the city official in charge of the project has already been replaced twice." Yeah, yeah, okay Rem, whatever you say.
· Interview with Star Architect Rem Koolhaas [Der Spiegel]
· Koolhaas in Der Spiegel [Architizer]
Filed under:
Loading comments...