S, M, L, XL
From the Publisher. S, M, L, XL presents a selection of the remarkable visionary design work produced by the Dutch firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture (O.M.A.) and its acclaimed founder, Rem Koolhaas, in its first twenty years, along with a variety of insightful, often poetic writings. The inventive collaboration between Koolhaas and designer Bruce Mau is a graphic overture that weaves together architectural projects, photos and sketches, diary excerpts, personal travelogues, fairy tales, and fables, as well as critical essays on contemporary architecture and society.
The book's title is also its framework: projects and essays are arranged according to scale. While "Small" and "Medium" address issues ranging from the domestic to the public, "Large" focuses on what Koolhaas calls "the architecture of Bigness." "Extra-Large" features projects at the urban scale, along with the important essay "What Ever Happened to Urbanism?" and other studies of the contemporary city. Running throughout the book is a "dictionary" of an adventurous new Koolhaasian language — definitions, commentaries, and quotes from hundreds of literary, cultural, artistic, and architectural sources.
Nice to browse through the images. Content and form are one. Beginning of too many thick books.
S, M, L, XL came out during my second year of studies and could be found on every student’s desk at TU Delft in those days. It was a perfect pillow book, in the sense that it was frequently used to puts one’s head on to rest for a moment.
This book arranges texts, projects, and images by OMA about the contemporary city according to scale, rather than time or subject. In doing so, rather than simply representing them as they happened, it opens each to overlaps, new connections, and new readings.
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