“Cronocaos” or “Crockocaos?” Rem Koolhaas vs. Preservation
The New York Times architecture critic suggests that visitors to the current Rem Koolhaas exhibit at the New Museum may conclude that preservation has become a “dangerous epidemic.” They might as easily conclude that it is hard to figure out what Mr. Koolhaas is saying at all.
There are plenty of unsupported and overly broad manifestos about preservation. For instance that 12 percent of the world is now preserved; that preservation regulatory agencies are remote and inaccessible and that preservation is responsible for gentrification. The Times critic bemoaned the clubs and boutiques that are changing the Bowery. But the Bowery is not designated. The City’s regular development pressures are changing that area. And the very museum hosting the exhibit helped initiate those changes.
Mr. Koolhaas is clear on a few points: he wants architects featured on the cover of Time Magazine; and he thinks the world needs more cities designed by architects from scratch, e.g. Brasilia.
The provocative architect also challenges Harvard University’s remodeling and reuse of original campus buildings as a “falsification of history.” He suggests that buildings be periodically torn down so new ones can be built. So much for sustainability. And so much for James Marston Fitch’s dictum that preservation “puts new wine in old bottles.”
Much is also made of leaving one wall of the exhibit room unpainted and “real” while the other is painted white and, apparently, false. Preservation apparently also erases too much “character.”
Only two years ago, Mr. Koolhaas delivered the first Paul Byard Memorial Lecture for the Columbia Preservation School. There he told of his new-found appreciation of preservation and denounced how ego-centric much of contemporary architecture has become.
Egocentricity did seem to play a large part in this exhibit.
Click here to read The New York Times review.
