1. When he was young he collaborated with the director Jan de Bont, whose credits would later include Speed and Twister.
2. Koolhaas dates his desire to become an architect to a speech he delivered to a group of architects at the University of Delft when he was 24.
3. The drawings from his final project at the AA are the most requested items from MoMA's Architecture and Design collection. (Smithsonian Magazine)
4. The typology he has most experience in his life? Hotels. He told the New York Times Magazine that he was excited to be designing one.
5. He's not the Rem Koolhaas behind United Nude (but Rem D. Koolhaas, the shoe company's founder, is his nephew).
6. You can watch a rainy encounter between Rem Koolhaas and Philip Johnson in the documentary Diary of an Eccentric Architect.
7. He once pre-empted an architectural competition with Herzog & de Meuron by suggesting that they join forces. The firms teamed up to propose a design for an Ian Schrager hotel in New York.
8. As a boy, he lived in Jakarta, Indonesia.
9. He guest-edited an issue of Wired Magazine in 2003. In it, he follows up Delirious New York with an article titled "Delirious No More."
10. When he accepted a position to teach at Harvard at 1995, he did so on the condition that he would not teach a design course.
11. He says he's irresponsible, and he thinks it's an asset. (Smithsonian Magazine)
“I’ve absolutely never thought about money or economic issues...but as an architect I think this is a strength. It allows me to be irresponsible and to invest in my work.” - Rem Koolhaas
12. AMO, OMA's in-house think tank, was formed following Universal Studios' commissioning of OMA to design its headquarters.
13. Frank Gehry called him "one of the great thinkers of our time" in a 2000 article in The New York Times Magazine.
