Rem Koolhaas
Remment Lucas Koolhaas born 17 November 1944 is a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist and "Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design" at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, USA. Koolhaas also studied at the Netherlands Film and Television Academy in Amsterdam, and at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London and at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. In 1975, Rem Koolhaas founded the Office for Metropolitan Architecture with architects Elia, Zoe Zenghelis and his wife Madelon Vriesendorp in London, and has since been involved in building and urban planning projects.
He is the principal of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, or OMA, and of its research-oriented counterpart AMO, currently based in Rotterdam, Netherlands. They were later joined by one of Koolhaas's students, Zaha Hadid- who would soon go on to achieve success in her own right. An early work which would mark their difference from the then dominant postmodern classicism of the late 1970s was their contribution to the Venice Biennale ( a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy) of 1980, curated by Italian architect Paolo Portoghesi, titled "Presence of the Past". Each architect had to design a stage-like "frontage" to a Potemkin-type internal street; and the OMA scheme was the only modernist scheme among them.
One of the world's most honored architects, a recipient of the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2000, Rem Koolhaas is considered one of the world's most brilliant, daring and creative architects. In 2008 Time put him in their top 100 of The World's Most Influential People.
OMA
In the late nineties, while working on the design for the new headquarters for Universal (currently Vivendi), OMA was first exposed to the full pace of change that engulfed the world of media and with it the increasing importance of the virtual domain. It led Rem Koolhaas and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) to create a new company, AMO, exclusively dedicated to the investigation and performance in this realm. 
ONSET OF HIS CAREER.
Rem began his career as an architect not by designing a building but by writing a book. His Delirious New York was hailed as a classic text on modern architecture and society. The book instantly established Rem as not just a presence to be reckoned with in the architectural world, but also as one of the great creative minds of our generation. Koolhaas first studied scriptwriting at the Netherlands Film and Television Academy in Amsterdam. Koolhaas co-wrote The White Slave, a 1969 Dutch film noir. He then was a journalist for the Haagse Post before starting studies, in 1968, in architecture.
In 1995, he published SMLXL, in collaboration with graphic designer Bruce Mau; the book documents the work of OMA and Koolhaas' interest in contemporary society, building and urban development. In 2005 he co-founded Volume Magazine together with Mark Wigley and Ole Bouman.
PROJECTS
Some of OMA's most important projects include Masterplan City Center, Lille; Lille Grand Palais, Lille; H-project, Seoul; Educatorium, Utrecht; Kunsthal, Rotterdam; Netherlands Dance Theatre, The Hague; Nexus Housing, Fukuoka; Dutch House, Holland; and Villa dall'Ava, Paris. The first large project by OMA to be built was the Kunsthalin Rotterdam (1992). These schemes would attempt to put into practice many of the findings Koolhaas made in his book Delirious New York (1978). Others include the Riga Port City, (Riga, 2009),23 East 22nd Street, (New York City, 2008-2010),Bryghusprojektet, (Copenhagen, 2008-2010),Torre Bicentenario (Bicentennial Tower), (Mexico City, 2007-2010),Córdoba International Congress Center (Palacio del Sur), Córdoba, Spain, Serpentine Pavilion, (London, 2006),Milstein Hall, (Cornell, 2006-2009) , Seoul National University Museum of Art (Seoul, 2003-2005) Seattle Central Library (Seattle, 2004) among others.
Other early critically received (yet unbuilt) projects included the Parc de la Villette, Paris (1982) and the residence for the President of Ireland (1981).
In October 2008 Rem Koolhaas was invited for a European "group of the wise" under the chairmanship of former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez to help 'design' the future European Union. Other members included Nokia chairman Jorma Ollila, former European Commissioner Mario Monti and former president of Poland Lech Walesa.
AWARDS
Apart from the Pritzker Prize Award,this architect has a number of other awards namely Chevallier de Légion d'honneur(highest Order in the Legion of Honour in France) awarded in 2001,Praemium Imperiale( intended to be a "Nobel Prize in art" and an expansion on the Nobel Prize in Literature to other fields of fine art in 2003),Royal Gold Medal (in recognition of an individual's or group's substantial contribution to international architecture) in 2004 and Doctor honoris causa by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven( a doctorate given to an individual for his/her contribution to a specific field, or to society in general) in 2007.
Another key aspect of architecture Koolhaas interrogates is the "Program". With the rise of modernism in the 20th century the "Program" became the key theme of architectural design. The notion of the Program involves "an act to edit function and human activities" as the pretext of architectural design: epitomised in the maxim Form follows function, first popularised by architect Louis Sullivan and Nicolas Cisneros at the beginning of the 20th century. The notion was first questioned in Delirious New York, in his analysis of high-rise architecture in Manhattan. An early design method derived from such thinking was "cross-programming", introducing unexpected functions in room programmes, such as running tracks in skyscrapers. More recently, Koolhaas (unsuccessfully) proposed the inclusion of hospital units for the homeless into the Seattle public Library project (2003).
Koolhaas continuously incorporates his observations of the contemporary city within his design activities: calling such a condition the ‘culture of congestion’. For example, in his design for the CCTV headquarters in Beijing (2006), Koolhaas did not opt for the stereotypical skyscraper, often used to symbolise and landmark such government enterprises, but instead designed a series of volumes which not only tie together the numerous departments onto the nebulous site, but also introduced routes (again, the concept of cross-programming) for the general public through the site, allowing them some degree of access to the production procedure. Through his ruthlessly raw approach, Koolhaas hopes to extract the architect from the anxiety of a dead profession and resurrect a contemporary sublime, however fleeting it may be.
Recently he has changed the organization of his office to a partnership. Partners next to him are Ole Scheeren, Ellen van Loon, Reinier de Graaf, Shohei Shigeimatsu and managing partner Victor van der Chijs. Koolhaas is also designing a science center for Hamburg’s Hafencity.
