Surrealist Koolhaas

The sheaf of articles on the work and person of Rem Koolhaas introduces the architect from Rotterdam under the title ‘An Exquisite Corpse,’ in simultaneous reference to his surrealist impulses and the disjointed nature of a career in which books and exhibitions mark intellectual and formal turning points. Hence, commentaries on the publications – from the pioneering Delirious New York or the blockbuster S, M, L, XL to Pearl River Delta, Content, or Elements – are interspersed with critiques on the buildings and projects (the Casa da Música in Porto, the Guggenheims of Las Vegas, the Prada stores, the Seattle library, and the proposals for the city of Córdoba or New York’s Ground Zero), and one does not really know in the end which are more important in defining his conceptual and aesthetic trajectory. His retour à l’ordre with the curatorship of the Venice Biennale suggests a new swerve in his dazzling, provocative, and paradoxical itinerary, and the book closes with a detailed analysis of this latest veer.