Rem Koolhaas

Rem Koolhaas (born 1944) is a Dutch architect and writer, born in Rotterdam. He worked as a journalist for the Haagse Post and as a screenwriter before studying architecture at the Architectural Association in London from 1968 and then at Cornell University. In 1975 he founded the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) with Elia Zenghelis, Zoe Zenghelis and Madelon Vriesendorp. He received the Pritzker Prize in 2000 and has taught at Harvard's Graduate School of Design.

His book Delirious New York (1978), subtitled A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan, read the city's skyscrapers and street grid as an unwritten theory of urban density. S,M,L,XL (1995), made with the graphic designer Bruce Mau, collected OMA's projects and essays, including "The Generic City." His buildings often stack different functions in one structure and link them with ramps and sloping floors. The Kunsthal in Rotterdam (1992) is organized around a continuous ramp.

The Seattle Central Library (2004) stacks its floors as offset platforms inside a diagonal grid of steel and glass, with the book stacks on a spiral ramp running through four levels. The Casa da Música in Porto (2005) is a faceted white concrete concert hall. The CCTV Headquarters in Beijing (2012) joins two leaning towers at the top and bottom to form a loop. He directed the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale.