The Architectural Association School is mounting the first ever retrospective of the books produced by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture – a practice co-founded by a writer, Rem Koolhaas, largely on the basis of a book, Delirious New York (1978).
The centrepiece of the show is a specially-made 40,000-page book, binding together hundreds of OMA’s pamphlets and books made over 35 years of architectural thought, work and provocation.
OMA Book Machine: The Books of OMA runs from 8 May until 4 June 2010 at the AA School Gallery.
Many OMA books – like S,M,L,XL (1995) and Exodus or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture (made by the founders of OMA in 1975, and submitted by Koolhaas as his fifth-year thesis at the AA) – have had a decisive impact on architectural practice and book publishing in general.
Others, like MoMA Charrette, made for the (lost) competition to expand New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1997, have remained hidden in the OMA archive.
By compiling and presenting the depth and relentlessness of OMA’s dedication to the making of books as a still-revolutionary architectural form, OMA Book Machine reveals how central books remain to architecture today.
Some books by Rem Koolhaas and OMA:
Serpentine Gallery: 24-hour Interview Marathon: London
Unveiling The Prada Foundation
Rem Koolhaas & Hans-Ulrich Obrist
What Is Oma: Considering Rem Koolhaas And The Office For Metropolitan Architecture
The Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping
Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan
