Rem Koolhaas

Interview, Oct, 2000 by Ingrid Sischy

IF HE BUILDS IT, THEY WILL COME

Around ten years ago, I got a sneak preview of what would make Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas the perfect designer for the new century. We'd agreed to meet the next time we were both in Paris so that I could see a house, the Villa dall'Ava, that he'd designed on the outskirts of the city. When he picked me up at my hotel I noted how, unlike many of his colleagues who live in (and sometimes create) a kind of ivory tower, Koolhaas genuinely understood worlds other than his own, such as art, film, even fashion. Arriving, I noticed how his clients, who had already been living in the house, seemed truly pleased to see him, and vice versa. In that house I witnessed all the elements that make for a typical Koolhaas project: surprise, invention, thoughtfulness, tension, and tradition turned on its head. A Koolhaas building is where ideas and humanism meet.

We drove home, and I felt incredibly moved by the fact that Koolhaas--who back then was known more for Delirious New York, his brilliant book on the architecture, sociology, and story of the city, than for his architecture--was so excited that he had finally gotten to build something that he personally took me to see it. Today he is the chosen one for projects as wide-ranging as the Seattle Public Library and the new Prada stores in America, which will revolutionize the way people shop. Koolhaas may now be much in demand, but what makes him someone to watch closely is what he demands of architecture.