Lecture date: 2007-05-18
Reflecting on architecture and politics in a no-longer American-led era of globalization, Rem Koolhaas takes a brief tour through recent work by OMA, discussing the CCTV building in Beijing, the Gazprom HQ in St Petersburg, and the technopolitan Almaty Science Campus in Kazakhstan. Questioning the Western bias that permeates much of the criticism of the architecture and urbanism of Dubai, Koolhaas introduces several recent projects primarily based in the UAE, including the Dubai Renaissance competition entry for Business Bay, the Al Manakh guide to the Gulf Region, and the RAK Convention and Exhibition Centre in Ras Al Khaimah. He concludes with a re-examination of the relationship between the infrastructure of Lagos and the city's complex patterns of organization, a process leading to the rewriting of previous narratives in the publication Lagos: How It Works (2007).
Rem Koolhaas is a former student and tutor at the AA and founder of OMA. He was awarded the Pritzker Prize in 2000.