Source Books in Architecture No. 14: Rem Koolhaas, OMA + AMO / Spaces for Prada

(Paperback)

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Source Books in Architecture No.14: Rem Koolhaas / OMA + AMO Spaces for Prada is the most recent volume in the Source Books in Architecture series. Among the topics discussed in the book are the longstanding relationship with Prada and how the early objectives in that relationship have both maintained and shifted. An underlying theme to the conversations held with students and faculty of the Knowlton School community is the topic of architect client relationships, their history, their problems, and how they have contributed to the discipline over time. Explicitly, a focus of the conversation is on a number of projects that OMA has developed or completed with Prada, a large number of which are installation scale environments that manifest in the form of runway shows and exhibitions. The challenge of such projects is to retain a commitment to the political and cultural agenda that OMA embeds in the larger and permanent buildings. Given the ephemerality and role of these environments as literal backgrounds to highlighted events, the projects are ideal scenarios in which to develop an architecture that lacks the permanence of buildings while still carrying potency and contributing to larger cultural discussions involving, for example, event, place, concept, product, staging, the crowd, lighting, and materiality. Source Books in Architecture No.14 contains project documentation from the OMA and Prada archives, transcripts from Koolhaas' conversations with students at the Knowlton School at The Ohio State University, and commentary and critique from architects, critics, and theorists.

Author Bio

Benjamin Wilke is a senior lecturer at the Knowlton School of Architecture at The Ohio State University, where he teaches graduate and undergraduate studios and seminars.

Rem Koolhaas founded OMA in 1975 with Elia and Zoe Zenghelis and Madelon Vriesendorp. In 1978, he published Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan. In 1995, his book S, M, L, XL summarised the work of OMA in "a novel about architecture." He coheads the work of both OMA and AMO, the research branch of OMA, operating in areas beyond the realm of architecture.