Rem Koolhaas Directs 14th Venice Architecture Biennale on Modernity

Rem Koolhaas, founder of OMA (1975, Rotterdam) and AMO (1998), directs the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale (2014) under the theme "Fundamentals." The Biennale comprises three exhibitions: "Absorbing Modernity 1914-2014" in national pavilions, "Elements of Architecture" on fundamental building components, and "Monditalia" using Italy as a European mirror. Koolhaas, a Pritzker Prize winner (2000) and Golden Lion recipient (2010), emphasizes research as learning from unfamiliar contexts. He rejects fixed definitions of modernity, asking each country to interpret it—e.g., Canada's "Adaptations to the Arctic." OMA's current French projects include Caen's multimedia library, Toulouse's exhibition park, and Paris-Saclay's École Centrale. The Fondation d'art contemporain des Galeries Lafayette in Paris's Marais district opens in 2016. Koolhaas critiques architectural photography and the "Turbine Hall effect" on art. His concept of "Bigness" is often misunderstood; he insists it critiques reductive contextualism. The Taipei Performing Arts Centre (2015) combines three theaters into one industrial-scale space. The Fondaco dei Tedeschi renovation in Venice sparked controversy, though Koolhaas notes the building was heavily altered in the 1930s. He cites influences from Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, Italian radical groups like Superstudio, and Salvador Dalí's paranoid-critical method. His upcoming book investigates the countryside.