study break.

"Where there is nothing, everything is possible. Where there is architecture, nothing {else} is possible." - Rem Koolhaas

Koolhaas' obsession with contemporary culture would be the logical place to start with a statement so seemingly vague.

Our contemporary culture is fundamentally kinetic and free to move and think. Taken literally, architecture is the end of freedom. It contains, weighs, restricts, is static. In a sense, architecture is conceivably antithesis of freedom. As an architect who pursues a meaningful and everlasting relationship and understanding of the culture we belong to, this is presents a challenge.

A bridge must then be constructed between the freedom of movement that characterizes contemporary culture and the fundamentally restrictive notion of architecture. Architecture must become everything it isn't. Buildings can successfully shed their inherent restrictions and symbolize the contemporary ideas they fundamentally contradict. The logical solution is nonarchitecture. Stated differently, if everything is possible where there is nothing, then that is exactly what buildings should be.

What this model presumably accomplishes is an architecture that can conceivable resist any all classification. It embraces all that is novel, dynamic and non-binding. It's conventionally unconventional, and does so with simultaneous pride & humility.

What a fantastic notion. An architecture of immediate context. The anti-intellectual approach that what we build must not represent veiled cynicism and inherited superiority. It must inspire, not condescend. It must represent, not dictate. It represents inspiration and therefore is.