Architecture
Rem Koolhaas Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement
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in 2000 he won the Pritzker Prize
07 | 16 | 2010
he founded OMA with Elia and Zoe Zenghelis and Madelon Vriesendorp
The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement for the 12th International Architecture Exhibition (Venice, Giardini and Arsenale, 29th August – 21st November, 2010) has been awarded to the Dutch architect, Rem Koolhaas. The decision was taken by the Board of the Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta, upon the proposal of the Director of the 12th Exhibition, Kazuyo Sejima.
“Rem Koolhaas has expanded the possibilities of architecture. He has focused on the exchanges between people in space. He creates buildings that bring people together and in this way forms ambitious goals for architecture. His influence on the world has come well beyond architecture. People from very diverse fields feel a great freedom from his work.“
Mentioned in Time in 2008 as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, in 1975 Rem Koolhaas – together with Elia and Zoe Zenghelis and Madelon Vriesendorp – founded OMA The most important works by Koolhaas and OMA include the Netherlands Dance Theatre at The Hague, the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, the Grand Palais and EuroLille Masterplan, both in Lille, Villa dall’Ava, Très Grande Bibliothèque, Seattle Public Library, Casa da Musica and the Headquarters for Chinese Central Television in Beijing Together with Koolhaas’s reflections on contemporary society, these buildings appear in his book, S,M,L,XL (1995), written as though it were a “novel about architecture”. In 1978, he wrote Delirious New York: a retroactive manifesto for Manhattan, which has become a classic of contemporary architectural theory. In 2000, he won the Pritzker Prize.
The Board has also decided to award a special commemorative Golden Lion in memory of the Japanese architect, Kazuo Shinohara, who died in 2006 and who had a broad influence on the Japanese architectural scene, giving rise to the so-called “school of Shinohara”, the inspiration for the works of Toyo Ito, Kazunari Sakamoto and Itsuko Hasegawa.
“Shinohara was a person who thought directly about the symbolism inherent in space and how that symbolism relates to individuals. In one way, he thought about how that symbolism was formed in the context of Japanese tradition but in another, he was concerned with more abstract geometries and the randomness of the city. With this research, he created very special and very sensitive houses that helped him form a thesis critical of modern architecture. People in Japan and around the world have been fascinated by him. I’m proposing to honor him here because he thought about the power of space on a very personal level.”
Biographical notes
Rem Koolhaas was born in Rotterdam in 1944. He began his career as a journalist, working for the Haagse Post, and as a screenwriter in the Netherlands and Hollywood. He frequented the Architectural Association School in London and studied with Oswald Mathias Ungers at Cornell University. In 1978, he wrote Delirious New York: a retroactive manifesto for Manhattan, which has become a classic of contemporary architectural theory. In 1975 – together with Elia and Zoe Zenghelis and Madelon Vriesendorp – he founded OMA. The most important works by Koolhaas and OMA, from its foundation until the mid-1990s, include the Netherlands Dance Theatre at The Hague, the Nexus Housing at Fukuoka in Japan, the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, the Grand Palais of Euralille and Lille, the Villa dall’Ava, the Très Grande Bibliothèque, the Jussieu Library in Paris, the ZKM in Karlsruhe. Recent works include the Seattle Public Library, Zeche Zollverein in Essen and Casa da Musica in Porto.
Together with Koolhaas’s reflections on contemporary society, these buildings appear in his second book, S,M,L,XL (1995), a volume of 1376 pages written as a “novel about architecture”. Published in collaboration with the Canadian graphic designer, Bruce Mau, the book contains essays, manifestos, cartoons and travel diaries.
In 2005, with Mark Wigley and Ole Bouman, he was the founder of Volume magazine, the result of a collaboration with Archis (Amsterdam), AMO and C-lab (Columbia University NY).
He is currently working on projects for the headquarters of China Television in Beijing and for the Stock Exchange of Shenzhen.
Koolhaas is professor at Harvard University, where he directs The Project on the City, a research programme on changes in urban conditions around the world. This programme has conducted research on the delta of the Pearl River in China resulting in books such as Great Leap Forward and The Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping both published by Taschen.
The awards he has won in recent years include the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize (2000), the Praemium Imperiale (2003), the Royal Gold Medal (2004) and the Mies Van Der Rohe prize (2005). In 2008, Time mentioned him among the 100 most influential people in the world.
As well as directing OMA, Koolhaas has been involved in the activities of AMO, OMA’s design and research studio established in 2000, which handles non-architectural projects, ranging from IT to publishing. Since its foundation, AMO has worked with Prada to increase the presence of the company worldwide, via a series of creative activities. The two-year research activities of AMO for the European Commission on the visual identity of the EU concluded with the Image of Europe exhibition, hosted by the Dutch government in autumn 2004. In 2003 and 2004, the complete work of OMA and AMO was presented in the Content exhibition at the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin and the Kunsthal in Rotterdam. The publication Content (2003) illustrates the ways with which Koolhaas, OMA and AMO interact with the world and how the world in turn influences their work.
Kazuo Shinohara (2nd April 1925 - 15th July 2006), exercised a broad influence on the Japanese architectural scene, leading to the establishment of the so-called “Shinohara School”, the inspiration for the works of Toyo Ito, Kazunari Sakamoto and Itsuko Hasegawa.
As architectural critic, Thomas Daniell, has noted, Shinohara may be considered “a key figure who has explicitly refused Western influences and who is nevertheless present in almost every aspect of contemporary Japanese architecture (…). The influence of his work as theoretician, architect and academic has been enormous”.
He completed his studies at the Tokyo Institute of Technology (TIT), whence he graduated in 1953 and where he held a chair in 1970, thus beginning his over 30-year academic career. He founded his office in 1954 and designed more than 30 residential buildings, together with numerous important public buildings throughout Japan. Among these are: Kugayama House (1954), Umbrella House (1961), House in White (1966), Uncompleted House (1970), Uehara House (1976), House Under High Voltage Lines (1981), Ukiyo-e Museum, Matsumoto (1982), Tokyo Institute of Technology (TIT) Centennial Hall (1987), which is considered his masterpiece, Kumamoto Police Station (1990), K2 Building, Osaka (1990).
Among his publications are: Residential Architecture (1964), Theories on Residences (1970), 16 Houses and Architectural Theory (1971).
In 2005, he received the Grand Prix from the Architectural Institute of Japan (AIJ).
