This past Wednesday architect Rem Koolhaas delivered the McBean Distinguished Lecture at the San Francisco Art Institute. We missed it, but as a “plugged in” reader notes, “I’m sure there must have been some SocketSite readers there – would love to know if he said anything about SF architecture and the future of the city!” So would we. Readers?
UPDATE: A reader shares a succinct summary of the lecture. And a podcast of the lecture “to catch” will be available on sfai.edu in about a week.
Gee I would have loved to hear him especially as I’m all the more intrigued by an architect who last week proposed this amazing building for Jersey City. RK work coming to SF anytime soon?
http://www.curbed.com/archives/2007/02/26/across_the_river_rem_koolhaas_gone_wild.php
That thing was so packed it wasn’t funny, he began the talk deploring the state of modern buildings: whacky forms and material
I didn’t stick around, the live feed in the student cafe was pretty crappy
No podcast available? Where are the arty geeky types when you need them? I wonder what he thinks of the development by Grosvenor at the site of his proposed Prada store on Post?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/04/DDGSAI1JBN1.DTL&hw=prada+store&sn=007&sc=363
[Editor’s Note: “A podcast of this lecture will be available after 10 March at http://www.sfai.edu and on iTunes.”]
Rem kept it real. He was a bit all over the place; understandably so, he had a lot to share; starting with simple hand drawn graphs of how architects are underpaid and finishing with his thoughts on the new global order.
He spent most of the lecture discussing the various comptetions OMA has entered in the past few years; from their entry for a corporate headquarters building in St. Petersburg to their 2 competition entries in The United Arab Emirates.
He relished on his distaste of large corporate western architects (recognizable but various letters for names) and the poor architecture these practices produce.
It was definitely a lecture to catch.