THE IRRATIONAL EXUBERANCE OF REM KOOLHAAS: PLACES: DESIGN OBSERVER

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Is the larger legacy of Koolhaas and the ’90s the reframing of architecture not as a source of authority and order but as an accommodating mirror to the authority and disorder of the market? “Neoliberalism has turned architecture into a ‘cherry on the cake’ affair,” said Koolhaas, in a 2011 interview with Der Spiegel. “… I’m not saying that neoliberalism has destroyed architecture. But it has assigned it a new role and limited its range.” [51] Is the role of the avant-garde to cozy up with big capital to produce architecturally daring and socially unambitious icon buildings whose collective impact is less urbanistic than what some have likened to an “architectural petting zoo”? [52] In the emerging markets that Koolhaas targets, this may well be the case. But where capital is scarce and markets suffer from the bursting of irrationally exuberant bubbles, architects and urbanists are finding other highly creative means to advance agendas overlooked by the starchitects, includingproactive improvements to the city. This may be one of the contradictions of capitalism

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