Koolhaas

Rem Koolhaas is a Dutch architect, urbanist, and theorist born on 17 November 1944 in Rotterdam. He is best known for founding the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in 1975 and its research arm AMO. Through OMA and AMO, Koolhaas has produced a body of work that combines architectural design with urban theory and cultural critique, emphasizing programmatic complexity, typology, and the social dynamics of cities.

Koolhaas studied at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London and later at Cornell University in the United States, where he developed his interest in urban theory. He gained international attention with Delirious New York (1978), a sweeping interpretation of New York’s modern metropolis, and later with the monograph S,M,L,XL (1995), co-authored with Bruce Mau, which documented OMA's projects and ideas. He has served as a professor at several leading institutions, including Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.

Notable built works include the Kunsthal in Rotterdam (1992–1994), the Seattle Central Library (2004), the Casa da Música in Porto (2005), the De Rotterdam complex in Rotterdam (completed 2013), and the CCTV Headquarters in Beijing (completed 2012). Koolhaas’s architecture is often described as sculptural and provocative, characterized by unconventional responses to site, program, and urban context, and by a commitment to treating the city as a field of forces rather than a single object.

In 2000, Rem Koolhaas received the Pritzker Architecture Prize, recognizing his influence on contemporary architecture and urban thinking.