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Rem Koolhaas Professor in Practice Department of Architecture |
Projects 2002
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Konigin Julianaplein, Netherlands, The Hague
The Hague central station is a rather unattractive main line terminal. It is located in the transition area between the historic city centre and a modern quarter, where recent high rise building projects have been trying to inject new life. The city itself is located to the left and right of the station, which faces a large greenbelt area criss-crossed by roads. A mixed development including shops, housing and offices, totalling 100,000 m2, is to be inserted in the transition area between the station and the greenbelt with the appearance of the existing office development above the station to be maintained where possible. A number of studies were completed to investigate how a new development could structure the incoherent environment and at the same time incorporate a realistic representation of the station.
The size of the requested development seemed to indicate a need for one or two towers. However, because of the site’s direct link with the station, it was decided to develop a different typology that would be more equipped to manage communal living.
The result is a dynamic building, which extends in three directions and reaches a considerable height before it becomes an enclosed development. An inner court will be created between the actual station hall and the park, in which major thoroughfares will promote pedestrian movement. These passages, which will be approximately sixty meters high, will frame the various views of the city. The third wing, which in an earlier version extended into the park, proved not to be feasible partly for political reasons and we have opted to simply cut off this unwanted extension. This way we only show the impetus to further development, thus strengthening the dynamics of the building. CCTV - TV Station and Headquarters, China, Beijing
This iconic new addition to the Beijing skyline combines the entire process of TV making -- administration, production, broadcasting -- into a single loop of interconnected activity. Two structures rise from a common production platform, each with a different character: one is dedicated to broadcasting, the second to services, research and education. They merge at the top to create a cantilevered headquarters for management. Built directly adjacent to the CCTV, the Television Cultural Center (TVCC) will house public programs on site including a theater, cinemas, restaurants and five-star accommodation. The building will also serve as the international broadcasting center for the 2008 Olympics.CCTV will be one among many towers in Beijing's new Central Business District, all striving to be unique - all different expressions of verticality.
Skyscraper The tragedy of the skyscraper is that it marks a place as significant, which it then occupies and exhausts with banality... This banality is twofold: in spite of their potential to be incubators of new cultures, programs, and ways of life, most towers accommodate merely routine activity, arranged according to predictable patterns. Formally, their expressions of verticality have proven to stunt the imagination: as verticality soars, creativity crashes. Concept Instead of competing in the hopeless race for ultimate height - dominance of the skyline can only be achieved for a short period of time, and soon another, even taller building will emerge - the project proposes an iconographic constellation of two high-rise structures that actively engage the city space: CCTV and TVCC.
CCTV combines administration and offices, news and broadcasting, program production and services - the entire process of TV-making - in a loop of interconnected activities. Two structures rise from a common production platform that is partly underground. Each has a different character: one is dedicated to broadcasting, the second to services, research and education; they join at the top to create a cantilevered penthouse for the management. A new icon is formed... not the predictable 2-dimensional tower 'soaring' skyward, but a truly, 3-dimensional experience, a canopy that symbolically embraces the entire population... The consolidation of the TV program in a single building allows each worker to be permanently aware of the nature of the work of his co-workers - a chain of interdependence that promotes solidarity rather than isolation, collaboration instead of opposition. The building itself contributes to the coherence of the organization. While CCTV is a secured building for staff and technology, public visitors will be admitted to the 'loop', a dedicated path circulating through the building and connecting to all elements of the program and offering spectacular views across the multiple facades towards the CBD, Beijing, and the Forbidden City.
The Television Cultural Center (TVCC) is an open, inviting structure. It accommodates visitors and guests, and will be freely accessible to the public. On the ground floor, a continuous lobby provides access to the 1500-seat theater, a large ballroom, digital cinemas, recording studios and exhibition facilities. The building hosts the international broadcasting centre for the 2008 Olympic Games. The tower accommodates a five-star hotel; guests enter at a dedicated drop-off from the east of the building and ascend to the fifth floor housing the check-in as well as restaurants, lounges, and conference rooms. The hotel rooms are occupying both sides of the tower, forming a spectacular atrium above the landscape of public facilities. On the block in the south-east, the Media Park is conceived as an extension of the proposed green axis of the CBD. It is open to the public for events and entertainment, and can be used for outdoor filming.
CCTV - Media Park, China, Beijing The Media Park is located on the southeast block of the site with an area approx. 25,600m2. It’s also an extension of the shopping and green zone in the main axis of CBD. Media park is comprised of an artificial landscape composed by soft landscape and outdoor structures that provides space for outdoor media entertainment and a background for exterior broadcasting for CCTV. The combination of media and nature will give the excitement and peace of mind in the city of Beijing. Media park will give not only their most developed media technology but also their ambition to extend their broadcasting more various way to the public. CCTV - Service Building, China, Beijing
The notheastern block of the CCTV site is occupied by the two-story ring-shaped service buiding. It is a combination of the central energy center (for both CCTV and TVCC), the special broadcasting vehicle parking and the guards’s dormitories. The accommodations for the guards are located in the ring floating above E8 road, establishing an optical closure from the ceremonial plaza towards the east of the site. The lower portion of the ring in the south accommodates large broadcasting vehicles. The small vehicle garage, the energy center, and the fire control center are located, within the box-shaped section to the north of E8 road. AMO Atlas, Worldwide
While the atlas appeared out of the simple need to make an image of the geopolitical substance of the world and later on of new discoveries, it is now, after wiping out the last white spots, becoming more and more a tool to show non-physical information. But the information for these new atlases is fluid and the way in which the world presents itself is not bound to geographical shape. New constellations or alliances appear. The global movements, which determine our current life, are surrounding us as nebulous mass, sticking out as newspaper heading to than disappear again.
We try to consolidate these clouds and freeze them into a map as contemporary manifestation of events. The impact of a single event like an anti-war protest on the 15th February 2003, the burst of the IT-bubble in 2002 or more long term shifts like appearance of the YES world are captured in this way. This exhalation of history. But it is not just shear interest in the current status of the world. Though there is no place on earth, which is not influenced by the forces of globalization, every project in the OMA/AMO office asks for its global context.
The city is the place where global events show their local impact. At the start of the 20th century, 10 percent of the earth’s population lived in cities. By the end of this decade, 50 percent will be urban dwellers - urban dwellers, which see themselves more and more, influenced by rapidly changing global phenomena. The city is the place where global events show their local impact. In its attempt to visualize current trends, AMO tries to predict the possible future state of urban life, design future, global scenarios or but a specific OMA project in a global context. In our atlas we don’t discover or calculate new data but visualize existing official data in order to show political, economical and social trends, which affect the metropolis.
The global aspect of metropolis appeared only in the last quarter of the 20th century while the term world-city or “Weltstadt” was first used by Goethe himself in 1787. He applied it then to Rome and Paris. While at the time of industrialization the world-city was introduced, globalization explosively spread it out all over the globe. However the usage of the term is currently reduced to the cities of the western world while cities in Asia and Africa bypassing these self proclaimed world-cities in terms of inhabitants and population growth by far. But also with their economic growth most of these cities are doing much better, e.g. Shanghai’s GDP growth is more than three times higher and it has three times more inhabitants than London. Cordoba Congress Center, Spain
In 2002 OMA won the competition to design a new congress center located on the Miraflores Peninsula, facing the historic city center of Cordoba, Spain. Wishing to improve on the possibilities of the original building site, OMA proposed a new and unexpected location on the peninsula. Linear CCCity
First, the site is thickened into a long block that marks the threshold of the Miraflores neighborhood and defines a southern edge for the planned fluvial park. A horizontal slice through the slab allows the necessary activities - congress center, auditorium, retail, hotel - to be contained along a continuous trajectory running the full length of the building. The transparency of this middle zone establishes the building as a linear viewing platform, looking out over the park, the river and the historic center beyond. Above and below ancillary functions are consolidated in the slabs that profile.
Functioning as a programmatic sandwich, the upper lower layers fold or converge to respond to different interior/exterior pressures along its length: separating to accommodate the conference hall and auditorium; converging to define the hotel lobby; lifting to allow Miraflores Park and the street to continue through to the specified site. To the south, the main volumes of conference center and auditorium project from the slab; a ramp between the two marks the formal entrance to the complex.
The 360-meter length of the building is conceived as a promenade, a coherent sequence of programs and views. Bridging the east and west banks of the river along its length, the project spans the new site to become a route, the crucial link is the trajectory that moves visitors in and out of the historic center. A series of ramps channel the public seamlessly through the building, absorbing all circulation into a sequence of visitor’s center, auditorium, conference hall, retail and hotel. A roof terrace accommodates additional leisure activities: mini golf, outdoor cinema, and lookout. Taking its place within the urban fabric of the city, the siting of the CCC organizes the now disparate elements of Miraflores, river and historic center into a coherent urban grouping that extends the benefits of Cordoba’s tourist industry to the rest of the city. Zollverein Kohlenwäsche, Germany, Essen
Zollverein Masterplan, Germany, Essen
In 1988 the coal-refinery (the 'white side') of the Zeche Zollverein stopped working, 5 years after the mines (black side) were shut down. The once famous and infamous Ruhrgebiet lost the driving force behind its identity and "raison d'etre" overnight. For about 10 years the authorities did not know what to do with the industrial site, but were wise enough to buy the site from the former owners and declared it part of the industrial heritage in Germany. On the 12th of December 2001, the UNESCO formerly announced that the Zeche Zollverein was added to the list of world heritage industrial monuments, partly on the basis of the OMA-Master plan which respects the old identity. The master plan is developed in close collaboration with world heritage specialists and conservationists, and will gradually get realised until 2010.
The master plan consists of a band around the former historic site, which contains the necessary new program and functions. The former rail tracks will be maintained as public space, and will connect the main buildings. The sky bridges, which transported coal from one part of the site to another, will be used for visitors who can also visit a former mine tunnel on a 1,000 m depth. The allocation of new program in the periphery allows the old buildings to maintain their grandeur and strong impact on the visitor. Inside the band of new programme, surrounding the Zeche Zollverein, 4 new functions will be placed to guide, inform and attract visitors. The programming of the new buildings and re-programming of the existing buildings will happen with many functions, most of which will be related to art and culture. tri-annual and five-annual manifestations will attract visitors and generate a continuous influx of program, functions and ideas. New roads and the extension of an existing highway through a tunnel with its entrance and exit close to the site will allow for an easier access to the site. Hollocore Ruhrgebiet, Germany
While Europe was once the birthplace of the metropolis, the future of the modern city is now being defined in the developing world. According to a recent United Nations report, Europe’s population will decline in the coming fifty years. Where the Asian population is expected to rise by 41%, Europe’s population will decrease by 13%. Ironically, the urban substance of Europe in decline intersects China in ascension. The rice field next to the skyscraper in China’s Pearl River Delta finds its counterpart in the derelict industrial estate surrounded by urban fabric in the German Ruhr Valley: in both cases the metropolis has become a field condition of dispersed moments of concentration. Where the cities in the developing world explode into bigger, less containable metropolitan areas, urban Europe is in a state of entropy. No longer energized by growth, cities and towns drift off into a muddle of provincial sameness, leaving an urban vacuum. But, of course, modernity abhors a vacuum, and an infinite multiplicity of new forms of urbanity emerges to take the place of what has become redundant.
The HOLLOCORE© is emblematic of Europe’s new urbanity — the amorphous super-region that links Brussels, Amsterdam, and the Ruhr Valley is urban Europe’s non-event: it houses 32 Million inhabitants or 9% of Europe’s population, yet has no city larger than one million inhabitants. Two thirds of its population lives in cities smaller then 200,000 inhabitants — in places no one has ever heard of.
The Hollocore has had one of the highest concentrations of cities and towns in Europe since the Middle Ages. Despite explosive population growth during the industrial revolutions, the Hollocore is not dominated by a single center. Instead, it has swelled into a cloud of atomized sub-centers and peripheries. Every center claims its own identity, history, and centrality, while numerous peripheries offer space for new cultures and identities to unfold. In the Hollocore, all that is urban is losing ground. Over the last decades overall population growth has dropped to -0.2%. Within this static condition, mercurial movements of the population ensure that metropolitan density recedes: established cities lose residents while thinly populated areas gain. In the name of identity, city centers are stripped down to their historic pedestrian shopping streets, and appear more village-like than ever—frozen in a time that never was. Meanwhile, the periphery fills up with a mix of business-, commerce-, leisure-, industry-, logistic-, villa-, office-, or brainparks, generic urban matter embedded in massive inversions of green. In the Hollocore, the city has become the void left in the wake of its own expansion.The Hollocore stretches across three countries with three legal systems and their cumulative loopholes, all combining to form the most progressive legislative ecology in the world.
The Hollocore is a loophole culture: within its ambiguous borders, prostitution is legal and taxed, marijuana an official medicine, euthanasia legal highways, in Germany, have no speed limit, and gay couples can marry. Conversely, the combined progressive politics seems to have created Europe’s ideological black hole. In the Hollocore, tolerance and freedom have become Janus-faced. Populist rhetorics of intolerance, as exemplified by murdered Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn have found a steadily growing audience. Freedoms blossom next to extensive corruption, whether it is the massive fraud within the Dutch Ahold concern, the alleged network of pedophile politicians surrounding serial killer Marc Dutroux in Belgium, or the large number of Al-Qaeda members residing throughout the region prior to 9-11. The Hollocore’s culture of tolerance balances on the verge of anarchy. |
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