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Rem Koolhaas Professor in Practice Department of Architecture |
Projects 2001
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Barcelona Airport Terminal, Spain
In Europe traveling by air has always meant crossing borders. This phenomenon has granted the airport an aura of exclusivity, but at the same time it turned the simple act of getting on a plane into a complex procedure. Today the emergence of a sing le European market is claiming ever larger segments of the 'international airports' for 'domestic' travel. Many airport authorities share an awareness of this, yet five years of Schengen have not produced a noticeable change in the layout of airport terminals. It seems as though an overwhelming heritage of a past with border controls has not allowed the exploration of a future without them.
As countries moved to form economic blocks, a wave of mergers has hit the aviation business. A once prolific range of national airlines is turning into an ever-smaller number of pacts: airline alliances. The integration of airlines will do to the process of checking in what the integration of Europe did to border control. The departure hall with endless rows of counters for individual airlines-central feature of the 'classic' airport — is becoming a thing of the past. Flexibility within the airline alliance makes check-in (at least in theory) a service that can be provided anywhere. Can the two developments together hold the key to a new type of airport? A revision of both the check-in process and of the airport’s security/customs regime would allow a radical simplification of the airport’s organization. Most notably it would undo the division between 'landside’ and airside'; and consolidate these entities into a single integrated whole.
In such an organization all 'added facilities' would have maximum exposure to both visitors and passengers. This would not only enrich the 'airport experience…' '…But also greatly contribute to the airports economy: increasingly reliant on revenues from sources other than aviation.' Could Barcelona airport be the first demonstration of a conceptual break in airport design? In 1992 Barcelona airport was forced to revise its plans. Growth of the city of El Prat made the original idea of constructing a new runway to the north obsolete. Space for the new runway now had to be found in the south. A new configuration emerged, where 'the center' — the ideal location for the terminal building-no longer coincided with the existing terminal. The consolidation of terminal — and landside programs in a single linear building. 4 piers to the north hold gates suitable for bother international and domestic flights.
On the south side, directly connected to the building, are the gates for domestic flights only. Different orientations of the piers create a maximum number of contact positions. All 'added facilities' of the airport are organized in a continuous layer, sandwiched between luggage handling below and car park above. This continuous level allows a free flow at the entrance level of the planes. Check-in and vertical transport are combined in 4 towers dispersed evenly across the building. Check in can happen on all levels at the earliest possible instance after entering the airport. UN City, USA, New York
The end of the last century in New York City produced surprisingly little in the way of inspired or innovative architecture. We believe that this project with its compelling ingredients — scale, waterfront, proximity to the UN — offers a unique opportunity to re-imagine a new kind of development for New York City. We imagine a site of extreme vibrancy. It is our belief that the most successful neighborhoods are those with the most radical mixes of program. The urban wedge contains this mix of ecology, entertainment, service, infrastructure, living and working. The wedge engulfs the highway and delivers the waterfront back to the community. We imagine a new kind of towers and eschew the programmatic stagnation that has rigidly shaped New York. These towers are shaped by new ideas about hybrid program and mix cultural, commercial and residential activities. They are towers for 21st century living. We imagine hyper slender towers, marvels of sophisticated engineering, which allows views and light and open the site to the river.
We imagine a new kind of nature and a new kind of park. Neither walled fortress nor bleak plaza, we propose a sithe where recycling, land reclamation and power generation combine with recreation and social activities. LACMA Extension, USA, Los Angeles
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) complex is reconceived as a system of horizontal layers, with exhibition spaces stacked above an open-air plaza. The notions of transparency and uplift, essential to a true understanding of LACMA’s mission, are made manifest in the translucent roof that spans the entire museum floor. Once, all continents formed a single whole. Then they drifted apart. We propose to undo LACMA's 'continental' separation. Imagine an almost Utopian condition where the history of the arts can be told as a single and simultaneous narrative showing moments of chronological coincidence, autonomy, influence and convergence. After decades where accommodating the "modern" lead to a situation of glut and fatigue, the idea of the all-embracing has a new appeal.
LACMA's current proliferation across the site is a microcosm of Los Angeles: distributed rather than focused, it inhibits the full unfolding of its potential, both as a museum and as a site. This configuration resists critical mass and inhibits the clarity of its collections. Our proposal consolidates the collections into a whole, instead of a series of pavillions. It focuses spending on the reinvention of LACMA's image rather than renovation of uninspired buildings. It creates the opportunity for multiple paths, manifold interpretations and cross-curatorial exhibits within a single entity. We discovered that a consolidated LACMA could perform more efficiently, expend less money on renovation, open up more of the park to the city and create a sense of coherence and the much-needed presence that this museum has lacked for decades. Europe Iconography, Netherlands, Rotterdam
Following the Nice Summit the President of the Commission, Romano Prodi, and the Belgian Prime Minister, Guy Verhofstadt, invited a group of intellectuals to two brainstorming sessions to discuss the expectations, needs and functions of Brussels as capital of Europe. The final report summarises the main ideas and proposals resulting from those meetings. It aims to contribute to and inspire future decision-making. The key idea resulting from the exercise was that the European capital should not follow the example of national capitals. There was wide consensus among the participants about this. The European capital - still in the making - should be a stable but “light” capital, linking the diversities that lie at the heart of the European project.This should be achieved through exchanges and cultural contacts rather than through a reduction of differences and the establishment of hierarchies. Networking could act as unifying principle. The European identity should be conceived as a plural one. The communication about the European capital needs to be more attractive and consistent with these guiding ideas, keeping them in mind when selecting ideal or physical representations.
Past experience of the European Institutions in Brussels was not considered an example of good practice. The quality of buildings, urban planning, relations between the European Institutions and Brussels’ citizens, stakeholders’ participation in different stages of the decision-making process, were all considered problematic areas. The articulation of existing diversities within the city was considered unsatisfactory. A higher degree of project coherence and a more extensive use of the partnership principle between different actors could improve past practices and influence positively the attractiveness of the European project in Brussels for the people living, working, investing or visiting it.
The proposals made in this report are an example of how these expectations and needs could begin to materialise. They stress the cultural and social functions of the European capital - an aspect often underestimated in the past - and do not neglect the need to address urban planning issues. Four proposals have been selected for their demonstrative character:
Harvard, USA, Cambridge In 2001, AMO was charged to study Harvard`s development potential of its holdings in Allston, an area located on the other side of the Charles River. Although Harvard owns more land in Allston than in Cambridge, only 12%of the students are schooled there. AMO`s planning proposal identifies three different ways of maximizing Harvard`s urban development: (a) extension of infrastructure into Allston, (b) diverting the river Charles (Moses Scheme) and (c) establishing an infrastructural framework centred around three zones: Politics, Culture and Industry/Commerce (V Scheme).
Background Harvard has clearly benefited from its decentralized planning approach. But while the current system may have produced, in effect, a "rhizomatic expansion of alliances", the continued functionality of the system is increasingly compromised as Cambridge runs out of space. The system is dysfunctional in that it will thwart Harvard`s ability to realize its full potential.
The un-programmed nature of the Allston site and the absence of historical precedence on that side of the Charles, coupled with the inherent limitations of Cambridge, demand a new approach, one that must acknowledge some form of centralized planning and one that generates ideas that support Harvard`s pedagogic goals, civic duties and urbanistic desires. Proposition Infrastructure
The Moses Scheme The V Scheme Prada New York, USA
The New York project is an interior conversion of the former Guggenheim store in Soho [Broadway, Prince St, Mercer St]. The 23000 sqft are distributed between the ground floor and basement of the building. As a means to naturally connect to the large basement area and guide customers to the more invisible parts of the store, the floor steps downwards in its entire width and rises subsequently to re-connect to the ground level, creating a big 'wave'. The oversized stair made of zebra wood is used as an informal display space, where people can try on shoes and browse through bags and other accessories. On the push of a button, an event platform rotates out of the opposite part of the wave, turning the stair into an auditorium for performances, film projections, and lectures. Large metal cages for merchandise and display are suspended from an overhead track system and create singular shopping addresses, like inverted buildings in a street - a `hanging city`. These display volumes can contract at the back of the store into a solid volume and free the space for public activities.
A translucent wall of polycarbonate covers the existing brick wall of the building and establishes a dialogue between old and new. A mural of wallpaper on the entire length of the store allows for rapid change of the environment. Located at the Broadway entrance, a round and fully glazed elevator displays bags and accessories and gives the customer the possibility to shop while travelling vertically. It descends into a lounge located underneath the wave, where the main dressing rooms are visible from display mattresses covered in techno gel that give the possibility to sit and watch people dress. The black-and-white marble floor is a reference to the first Prada store in Milan; its reflection gets distorted through the curved mirrored ceiling of the space.
The northern part of the basement holds the archive, 'movable walls', an adapted system of compact shelving that allows the sequence and size of spaces to be altered according to need. These Prada-green shelves contrast with the unfinished gypsum board walls and the wooden ceiling. With a separate entrance from Mercer Street, the all-white clinic area contains VIP rooms, tailors and catering facilities. EU Barcode, Rotterdam
In May 2001, following the treaty of Nice in which Brussels was formally appointed capital of the European Union, the president of the European Commission Romano Prodi and Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt invited AMO to join a group of intellectuals for a series of Brainstorm sessions on the needs and functions of a European capital and how these could be best expressed in Brussels. In their contribution, AMO addressed Europe’s presence in Brussels through the architecture of their institutions, but they also went a step further, addressing Europe’s representation at large: its symbols, the visual language of its communiqués, its media presence etc... AMO criticized Europe’s representations as mute, limp, anti modern and totally ineffective in an age dominated by mass media. They went on further to suggest a direct relation between the absence of a visual language: described as ‘Europe’s iconographic deficit’ and a widespread ignorance about Europe’s causes among the general public.
As food for thought to the brainstorm sessions, AMO made an attempt at developing such a visual language that was exclusively associated with Europe, conveying Europe’s essential idea in a direct and powerful way. This operation has resulted in a series of illustrations or rather ‘image-bites’ of which the barcode is one. The barcode merges the flags of current EU member states into a single colourful symbol. It intends to represent the essence of the European project, showing Europe as the common effort of different nation states, with each state retaining its own cultural identity while sharing the advantages of acting together. Whereas the number of stars on the current EU flag is fixed, the barcode can be expanded with new members joining the EU.
After 2003…
Hermitage Guggenheim, USA, Las Vegas, Nevada Embedded directly into the façade of the Venetian Resort Hotel, the Hermitage Guggenheim is designed as a singular exhibition space for impressionist art. The gallery includes three rotating walls, which allow curators to change the size and proportion of the four intermediary spaces within seconds. A minimal pallet of material finishes, maple and corten steel, provides a warm background without detracting from the works of art.
Situated next to the porte cochere and entry of the Hotel, the long and singular gallery space is both carved out of the Hotel lobby and presents itself to the exterior as part of the ornate Venetian facade. The choice of cor-ten steel as a single wall and construction material defines the aestethic of the Hermitage Guggenheim and helps it offset itself from the overwhelming palette of finishes, forms and colors in place. The Museum offers an entrance from both the exterior and interior of the hotel lobby. The 5,000 sf gallery includes three rotating walls, mounted on to the three existing hotel tower columns. The rotation, made possible by ball bearing rings, allows curators to change size and proportion of the four intermediary spaces within seconds.
A continous six inch glass base creates a sharp distinction between ground and exhibition surface. A well balanced cor-ten patina provides a warm background and enhances the colors of the art work, currently featuring critical works from the Impressionist`s aera. In addition, the cor-ten finish eliminates any restoring of wall finishes, common when exhibitions change. Learning from refrigerator magnets, all paintings are hung from custom made magnets, able to withstand several hundred pounds of vertical load. The reduction of finishes, maple (floor and ceiling) and cor-ten, help the art to fully charge the space. The Hermitage Guggenheim terminates with a book and gift shop, taking place in the former VIP lounge of the Hotel. The sole removal of the carpet and the installation of polycarbonate and shelf faced walls transform this space sufficiently and create an intriguing treshhold between casino and museum. |
