Shohei Shigematsu, OMA partner and director of the New York office, lectures in Quebec City on architectural thinking in the financial crisis, and OMA's design for a new building for the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec. The lecture, on 30 September, took place at the Musée de la civilisation as part of the University Laval School of Architecture's 2010-2011 conference series. Recording via Télé-Québec.
Rem Koolhaas and associate Clement Blanchet have received the Fooding 2010 award for best interior design for Le Dauphin, a new restaurant by chef Fred Penau in a new development area in the 11th arrondissement in Paris. The design, an "obsession in white" made with marble, mirrors and wood, provides a pure scenographic background for Le Dauphin's cuisine. The materials enlarge the 80m2 space through reflection, as street-facing mirrored surfaces blur the boundary between interior and exterior. Le Dauphin, scheduled to open at the beginning of December, was conceived as a complement to Le Châteaubriand, one of the world's most critically acclaimed restaurants, also by Fred Peneau, and Iniaki Aispitarte, located two doors down. The Fooding prize is a new alternative to the traditional French restaurant rating system, and is awarded by lefooding.com, an alternative restaurant and culinary guide.
OMA partner and director of the New York office Shohei Shigematsu spoke at the TEDx East conference on Interconnectivity in New York today. Shigematsu's talk, 'Superspecific,' was on architecture's dependence not only onprogram, site, and zoning restrictions, but on a larger matrix of economic and emotional connections. (Video coming soon.)
Rotterdam, 9 November 2010 – Ground will be broken today for Maggie's Centre Gartnavel, a facility in Glasgow providing emotional and practical support for people living with cancer, their families and friends. Designed by OMA, the building, which is located on the grounds of Gartnavel hospital and close to the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre, is one of several Maggie's Centres in the UK and part of a pioneering project using thoughtful architecture and innovative spaces as tools for solace and healing. more
CNN's show "Icon" features OMA's exhibition on preservation at the Venice Biennale, and follows Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten to Hong Kong, where they discuss the conceptual masterplan for the West Kowloon Cultural District.
Monocle magazine talks to Rem Koolhaas about preservation and OMA's plans for the Fondaco dei Tedeschi at this year's Venice architecture biennale. "What is very important to realise is that Venice is not a stable entity. It's physically threatened but it's also threatened from depopulation,” Koolhaas says. Accordingly, the Fondaco is "a very deliberate effort to inject in that building but also in Venice a very strong, alive and intense and modern experience."
Rem Koolhaas discusses OMA's practice in an interview with Dutch Design Fashion Architecture: "I don't think you can make critical architecture because, in a sense, architecture always supports someone else's impulse. On the other hand I think our architecture is thoroughly critical because every subject, every question, every ambition is analysed and is placed on the operating table, as it were..."
For his NOW Interview project, Hans Ulrich Obrist interviewed every participating architect and artist at the 12th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice. In the Arsenale on 25 August, Obrist talked to Rem Koolhaas about preservation and OMA's "Cronocaos" exhibition. This video, along with dozens of others, is now playing in the Arsenale. Via la Biennale Channel.
The first ever "high level" cultural forum between the European Union and China, in Brussels this Wednesday and Thursday, will include a talk by Rem Koolhaas on interactions between the continents, and on OMA's ongoing work in China. The forum will be introduced by China's prime minister Wen Jiabao and the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso. Other participants include Umberto Eco, Julia Kristeva and Peter Sloterdijk. More info here. more
Hong Kong, 28 September 2010 – OMA's first completed project in Hong Kong opens today: museum-quality exhibition space and offices for the Edouard Malingue Gallery, the city's first gallery dedicated to Impressionist and Modernist masterpieces. more
Todd Reisz, the editor of Al Manakh 2, spoke together with Rem Koolhaas at Columbia University's school of Architecture, Planning and Preservation last Friday to launch Al Manakh 2 in New York. A critical moment in the US for a book that investigates the growing interconnectedness of the Gulf. Read the report on the blog Human Scribbles.
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Rotterdam, 10 September 2010 – OMA has won the competition for a major new library, the Bibliothèque Multimédia à Vocation Régionale (BMVR), in Caen, France. The 12,000m2 building will be the focal point of new development in Caen. Surpassing five submissions by internationally-renowned competitors, the project, led by OMA associate-in-charge Clément Blanchet, will be OMA’s first cultural building in France.
OMA, Palazzo delle Esposizioni OMA’s exhibition shows that nearly 12% of the planet is marked as ‘preserved’ and increasingly the boundaries of preservation are narrowing. Radical change and radical stasis and the unmitigated rise of the preserved building. VIDEO more
OMA, Palazzo delle Esposizioni OMA’s exhibition shows that nearly 12% of the planet is marked as ‘preserved’ and increasingly the boundaries of preservation are narrowing. Radical change and radical stasis and the unmitigated rise of the preserved building. VIDEO
At the 12th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice today,
Rem Koolhaas was awarded the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement
by Biennale director Kazuyo Sejima. Koolhaas commented: "It is a
really wonderful moment to get a lifetime achievement award in the
middle of my career. I will certainly treat it as an encouragement
for further action. Thank you."
De gevolgen van architectonische behoudzucht zijn soms pervers, zegt ‘starchitect’ Rem Koolhaas in een vraaggesprek in Venetie, waar hij een oeuvre-Gouden Leeuw kreeg.
Venice, 27 August, 2010 – OMA today unveils its design for the major restoration and redefinition of one of Venice's largest and most iconic buildings: the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, a property owned by the Benetton family, adjacent to the Rialto Bridge on the Grand Canal. more
Given that we often criticize the meager and token efforts of
fern-covered walls or 'greenwashed' products which often surface at
biennales, admittedly we found it a bit strange to come to Venice
and talk about sustainability. We wanted, however, to use the
opportunity to suggest that architects could play a larger role in
addressing the urgency of the issue.
In a rare meeting of minds, Rem Koolhaas, Norman Foster and Rocco
Yim this afternoon presented their conceptual masterplans for the
West Kowloon Cultural District in the Hong Kong pavilion at the
Venice architecture biennale. OMA's design is based on the model of
urban villages, which Koolhaas explains here...
