Rem Koolhaas
Architect and theorist, Pritzker Prize 2000
Born 1944
Photo: Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design from Moscow, Russia · CC BY 2.0
Rem Koolhaas is both a practising architect and the most influential architectural writer of his generation, with buildings including the CCTV headquarters in Beijing and the Seattle Central Library. He worked as a journalist and screenwriter before studying architecture.
Key achievements
- Pritzker Architecture Prize, 2000
- Founded OMA in 1975 and its research arm AMO
- Wrote Delirious New York, a manifesto for the modern city
Universities
Delft
Professor of architecture at Delft in the 1990s, and a central figure in Dutch architectural education.
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Professor at the Graduate School of Design, where he ran research projects on cities and shopping.
Facts
- His book Delirious New York, written before he had built anything, reinterpreted Manhattan as an accidental architectural theory.
- The CCTV building in Beijing is a continuous loop tilted in three dimensions, and engineers spent years proving it would stand.
- He spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, which he has said shaped his interest in cities that grow without planning.
Photographs
Photographs come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences; the author and licence are shown on each image.