Self Loathing & A Lifetime of Regret by Rem Koolhass

 Self Loathing & A Lifetime of Regret by Rem Koolhass

Rem Koolhaas's "Junkspace" defines the conditions and problems with modern architecture. Particularly picking apart the failures through a phenomenological approach of the human experience. "Junkspace is post-existential; it makes you uncertain where you are, obscures where you go, undoes where you were." or "Junkspace is overripe and undernourishing at the same time." I find myself subconsciously beginning to sneer as I continue reading, "A shortage of masters has not stopped a proliferation of masterpieces."

Junkspace is clarified as saturation of large-scale architecture, the lack of continuity within cities, the creation of malls with shops and spaces all under one roof, the result of air conditioning. In short, it becomes anything that you find to be wrong and a result of Modernism. Junkspace is the many failures of 20th-century architecture and the outcomes revolve around impacts to the human experience. 

However, I find it difficult to read this without judging Rem. Isn't there an undertone of hypocrisy in his critique? If you were to go to oma.com right now, the first project on the home page is Post Houston… a f***ing mall… If you were to look at the collection of Rem's work you would see a long list of starchitecture projects that through time and place separates itself from the pedestrian and is resultant of big money and capitalism. "Junkspace is political: it depends on the central removal of the critical faculty in the name of comfort and pleasure".

Is Rem having an existential crisis here? Is he finally beginning to question the reasons and impacts of his work? Has the corporate freight train called OMA been driving itself for the last 20-years as they put him in the back compartment where no one can hear him complain? How can this criticism and these projects come from the same person without acknowledging that this is a cry for help?