Chaired by Paolo Baratta, the Board of the Biennale di Venezia has awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to Rem Koolhaas. The much deserving architect has produced dozens of thought-provoking and inspirational works that constantly push the limits of the current state of architecture. His strength lies in his buildings’ strong conceptual nature that is carried through to ideas about circulation, structure and programmatic organization. ”Rem Koolhaas has expanded the possibilities of architecture. He has focused on the exchanges between people in space. He creates buildings that bring people together and in this way forms ambitious goals for architecture. His influence on the world has come well beyond architecture. People from very diverse fields feel a great freedom from his work,” explained the board.
More about the award after the break.
In 1975, Koolhaas founded OMA with Elia and Zoe Zenghelis and Madelon Vriesendorp - the firm that would grow to become a major “think tank” that consistently produced new architectural ideas. Beginning in the 1970s and continuing through today, OMA’s work took the architectural world by storm with projects such the Netherlands Dance Theatre at The Hague, the Nexus World Housing at Fukuoka, the CCTV Headquarters, the Seattle Public Library, to name a few, gracing international sites. In addition to building, Koolhaas’ thoughts were organized into best selling books, Delirious New York of 1978 and S,M,L,XL of 1995. Congratulations to Koolhaas for his talented ways.
As seen on Bustler. Check out our coverage of Koolhaas’ work.
