Seattle Central Library - Rem Koolhaas OMA

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E b l o i d x p r e s s

(*****) much-hyped, over-enthused, all-the-fuss, in general press

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[]

v e d e t t e b a n k c u r r e n c y i n d e x
f r i e n d l y p l u g s
(*****) manic-ly promoted, hysterically buffed-up, in architectural press

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[]

*** domus864_03.11.00

[North South Axis , Beijing]

neo-Haussmann
"Koolhaas has certainly made much more headway in Beijing than Albert Speer, son of Hitler's favourite designer who is hard at work lobbying the city authorities to take up his plan for a 24-kilometre long north-south axis for Beijing – with the Olympic stadium at one end, and a huge new railway station at the other. ...
Its a scheme that eclipses his father's work for Adolf Hitler and his axis for Berlin that would have been just 5 kilometres long, but also involved shuffling railway stations." (Deyan Sudjic, dom_03.11.00 #864)

inscrutable rules
"What I always try to do is to find a politician who will take my plans, look at them, and say, “this is my idea”, then it works." (Albert Speer, in Deyan Sudjic, dom_03.11.00 #864)

***

***

(*****) massively-ballyhooed, in architectural -- and general -- press

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(*****) contested projects in general -- and architectural -- press

m o b
(*****) intensely scrutinized in general press

o e d i p u s
(*****) f r i e n d l y f i r e
-esque -esq

genealogy

o f f t h e r a d a r
(*****) non disclosure p r o t e c t i o n

t h e t h o u g h t p o l i c e
(*****) f.o.b. -- not friends of ...

f r o z e n d i n n e r
(*****) shunned out -- belaboring in obscurities

s u p e r m o d e l h y p e r c a r d b o a r d
u l t i m a t e m e d i a h y p e

barely drawn -- on front-pages/ cover-pages of general press

*** domus864_03.11.00

[CCTV Headquarters, Beijing, China]

generic anonymity
"China is the place that western architects visit either in search of work, or to indulge in disaster tourism, a place to come and gawp on the edge of the urban abyss of monstrous, uncontrollable growth." (Deyan Sudjic, dom_03.11.00 #864)

conflation
"In the same way, a Koolhaas building is a highly visible demonstration that the Chinese state is no longer an out-of-touch culturally backward dinosaur." (Deyan Sudjic, dom_03.11.00 #864)

paper tiger
"For CCTV building a huge skyscraper that looks like nothing else in the world is the architectural equivalent of the Chinese space programme, a conspicuous symbol of success." (Deyan Sudjic, dom_03.11.00 #864)

acrid tang
"Switch on CCTV and rather than the clumsy propaganda that you might expect, you get cool MTV style graphics." (Deyan Sudjic, dom_03.11.00 #864)

necrophiliac grip
"A city that until 1990 had no central business district, and little need of it, now has a cluster of glass towers that look like the rejects from Omaha and Dubai." (Deyan Sudjic, dom_03.11.00 #864)

more >>>> CCTV

p e n u l t i m a t e

barely approved -- on coverpages of non-architectural/ design/ art press - prior to construction

*** nytimes_04.05.16

[Seattle Central Library, Seattle]

campy themes
"The first impression is pure bling-bling: ... this is big rock candy mountain." (Herbert Muschamp, nyt_04.05.16)

zagat survey
"Ages ago, Mr. Koolhaas used to stay at the U.N. Plaza Hotel in Manhattan, Kevin Roche's crisp variation on the International Style , and ... it occurred to me that Mr. Koolhaas had turned the hotel inside-out. The exterior resembles an inverted, Expressionist version of the Ambassador Grill, the hotel's ground-floor restaurant." (Herbert Muschamp, nyt_04.05.16)

mirrored-disco look
"Who knew that dated disco bling-bling makes an ideal motif for a 21st-century library?" (Herbert Muschamp, nyt_04.05.16)

encounter with space
"Eat your heart out I.M. Pei. ... the entrance pyramid at the Louvre looks like a gadget from Sharper Image catalog." (Herbert Muschamp, nyt_04.05.16)

nasty encounters
"The Seattle Art Museum, designed by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, is a rancid piece of work. Frank Gehry's Experience Music Project looks like something that crawled out of the sea, rolled over and died."(Herbert Muschamp, nyt_04.05.16)

*** newyorker_04.05.17

last architect
"His firm, the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, which is based in Rotterdam, wasn't on the original list of architects being considered for a new library in Seattle, but one day in 1999 Koolhaas's partner, Joshua Ramus, who comes from Seattle, got a phone call from his mother saying she had read in the local newspaper that any architect who wanted to be considered should show up the next day for a briefing." (Paul Goldberger, ny'er_04.05.17)

reinterpretation
"Koolhaas has always been a better architect than social critic." (Paul Goldberger, ny'er_04.05.17)

mixing chamber
"Koolhaas's verbiage is always a little annoying." (Paul Goldberger, ny'er_04.05.17)

parlor-trick
"Deborah Jacobs seems to have been about as close to an ideal client as could be imagined. ... She rejected the green-colored, unfinished sheetrock ... on the ground that it was trite and cheap-looking." (Paul Goldberger, ny'er_04.05.17)

"... an ennobling public space." (Paul Goldberger, ny'er_04.05.17)

*** seattlepi_04.05.23
*** seattlepi_99.12.16

finishes
"Kiasma was a stark symphony of cool white and dramatic shapes but without the chapel's welcoming grace. Even more crucial was the discovery that the museum, which had opened only a year before, did not seem to have aged well.
'That new building looked 10 years old,' Anderson remembered." (Gilbert Anderson, the library board, in John Douglas Marshall, spi_04.05.23)

*** seattletimes_04.04.25
[+] exit-D

civic chutzpah
"Rubik's Cube cinched by a corset?
A crystal frog poised to leap at the staid federal courthouse up the hill? A Christmas package so lumpy ..." (William Dietrich, st_04.04.25)

possum
"He speaks quietly, intently, a work of architecture himself with his tall, angular frame, balding and sculpted head, feet so long and narrow that they seem like angle irons ..." (William Dietrich, st_04.04.25)

vocera intercoms
"Everywhere Jacobs goes, she is asked if we are not spending $165.5 million on what will become a glorified, smelly greenhouse for the homeless." (William Dietrich, st_04.04.25)

pillow ceiling
"The men's room is painted an electric seasick green to discourage lingering." (William Dietrich, st_04.04.25)

"... community hub." (William Dietrich, st_04.04.25)

*** domus871_04.06.03
[+] exit-S

chartreuse
"OMA's building, unashamedly sculptural yet surprisingly pragmatic, redefines the relationship between information and public space." (Matthew Stadler, Michael Sanchez, dom871_04.06.03)

pollyannish rhetoric
"The new library's pleasures are mainly picaresque." (Matthew Stadler, Michael Sanchez, dom871_04.06.03)

corollary agora
"Instead of Technicolor foods and fabulous discos, one inevitably washes the lettuce scraps in a toilet bowl or dances drunk on a car roof with strangers unable to speak the same language." (Matthew Stadler, Michael Sanchez, dom871_04.06.03)

more on Seattle Central Library :

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*** domus864_03.11.00	[North South Axis , Beijing] neo-Haussmann "Koolhaas has certainly made much more headway in Beijing than Albert Speer, son of Hitler's favourite designer who is hard at work lobbying the city authorities to take up his plan for a 24-kilometre long north-south axis for Beijing – with the Olympic stadium at one end, and a huge new railway station at the other. ... Its a scheme that eclipses his father's work for Adolf Hitler and his axis for Berlin that would have been just 5 kilometres long, but also involved shuffling railway stations." (Deyan Sudjic, dom_03.11.00 #864) inscrutable rules "What I always try to do is to find a politician who will take my plans, look at them, and say, “this is my idea”, then it works." (Albert Speer, in Deyan Sudjic, dom_03.11.00 #864)
***
***

*** nytimes_04.05.16	[Seattle Central Library, Seattle] campy themes "The first impression is pure bling-bling: ... this is big rock candy mountain." (Herbert Muschamp, nyt_04.05.16) zagat survey "Ages ago, Mr. Koolhaas used to stay at the U.N. Plaza Hotel in Manhattan, Kevin Roche's crisp variation on the International Style , and ... it occurred to me that Mr. Koolhaas had turned the hotel inside-out. The exterior resembles an inverted, Expressionist version of the Ambassador Grill, the hotel's ground-floor restaurant." (Herbert Muschamp, nyt_04.05.16) mirrored-disco look "Who knew that dated disco bling-bling makes an ideal motif for a 21st-century library?" (Herbert Muschamp, nyt_04.05.16) encounter with space "Eat your heart out I.M. Pei. ... the entrance pyramid at the Louvre looks like a gadget from Sharper Image catalog." (Herbert Muschamp, nyt_04.05.16) nasty encounters "The Seattle Art Museum, designed by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, is a rancid piece of work. Frank Gehry's Experience Music Project looks like something that crawled out of the sea, rolled over and died."(Herbert Muschamp, nyt_04.05.16)
*** newyorker_04.05.17	last architect "His firm, the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, which is based in Rotterdam, wasn't on the original list of architects being considered for a new library in Seattle, but one day in 1999 Koolhaas's partner, Joshua Ramus, who comes from Seattle, got a phone call from his mother saying she had read in the local newspaper that any architect who wanted to be considered should show up the next day for a briefing." (Paul Goldberger, ny'er_04.05.17) reinterpretation "Koolhaas has always been a better architect than social critic." (Paul Goldberger, ny'er_04.05.17) mixing chamber "Koolhaas's verbiage is always a little annoying." (Paul Goldberger, ny'er_04.05.17) parlor-trick "Deborah Jacobs seems to have been about as close to an ideal client as could be imagined. ... She rejected the green-colored, unfinished sheetrock ... on the ground that it was trite and cheap-looking." (Paul Goldberger, ny'er_04.05.17) "... an ennobling public space." (Paul Goldberger, ny'er_04.05.17)
* seattlepi_04.05.23 * seattlepi_99.12.16	finishes "Kiasma was a stark symphony of cool white and dramatic shapes but without the chapel's welcoming grace. Even more crucial was the discovery that the museum, which had opened only a year before, did not seem to have aged well. 'That new building looked 10 years old,' Anderson remembered." (Gilbert Anderson, the library board, in John Douglas Marshall, spi_04.05.23)
*** seattletimes_04.04.25 [+] exit-D	civic chutzpah "Rubik's Cube cinched by a corset? A crystal frog poised to leap at the staid federal courthouse up the hill? A Christmas package so lumpy ..." (William Dietrich, st_04.04.25) possum "He speaks quietly, intently, a work of architecture himself with his tall, angular frame, balding and sculpted head, feet so long and narrow that they seem like angle irons ..." (William Dietrich, st_04.04.25) vocera intercoms "Everywhere Jacobs goes, she is asked if we are not spending $165.5 million on what will become a glorified, smelly greenhouse for the homeless." (William Dietrich, st_04.04.25) pillow ceiling "The men's room is painted an electric seasick green to discourage lingering." (William Dietrich, st_04.04.25) "... community hub." (William Dietrich, st_04.04.25)
*** domus871_04.06.03 [+] exit-S	chartreuse "OMA's building, unashamedly sculptural yet surprisingly pragmatic, redefines the relationship between information and public space." (Matthew Stadler, Michael Sanchez, dom871_04.06.03) pollyannish rhetoric "The new library's pleasures are mainly picaresque." (Matthew Stadler, Michael Sanchez, dom871_04.06.03) corollary agora "Instead of Technicolor foods and fabulous discos, one inevitably washes the lettuce scraps in a toilet bowl or dances drunk on a car roof with strangers unable to speak the same language." (Matthew Stadler, Michael Sanchez, dom871_04.06.03) more on Seattle Central Library :