Office for Metropolitan Architecture is an office that relies on collaborative partnerships. Rem Koolhaas, founder of the OMA, created AMO, which also does a great job with great brands, attending events and doing exhibitions and publications, producing a work "not architectural" within an architectural firm.
Photos from site oma.eu.
In the early 70's, Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis began working together in the Architectural Association, a school of architecture in London, where Rem studied and Elia was an instructor. Together they made some projects, all located in Manhattan, but none built. In 1975, Rem Koolhaas, Elia and Zoe Zenghelis and Madelon Vriesendorp and founded the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, OMA.
Soon after its founding, the firm was one of 10 winners of the architectural competition for the new building of the Dutch parliament in The Hague. This project was widely discussed and published, but the OMA was not responsible to run the project, a fact that has happened again several times in the early 80's. In this decade, however, they began to gain momentum to carry out the projects in The Hague, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Berlin and Paris. .
Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin, Germany
"Our office acts like a kind of educational establishment and we are very careful who we educate.” Rem Koolhaas
Nexus World Housing, Fukuoka, Japan
The leadership of the OMA is organized as collaborative partnerships. It is divided into offices in Rotterdam, New York, and Beijing and will soon open one in Hong Kong to accommodate new projects in Asia. Today, besides Koolhaas, there is partner Ole Scheeren leading the office in Beijing, Ellen van Loon, Reinier de Graaf, and Victor van der Chijs and Shohei Shigematsu who head the office in New York.
In 1998 Koolhaas founded the AMO, a space within the OMA dedicated to producing work "not architectural" as special events, exhibitions, campaigns and trade publications. The AMO has participated in the Venice Biennale, has been guest editor of Wired and Domus, and has also done work for Universal Studios, Harvard University, Heineken, and Ikea.
"Any architectural project we do takes at least four or five years, so increasingly there is a discrepancy between the acceleration of culture and the continuing slowness of architecture." Rem Koolhaas
Kunsthal, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Lille Grand Palais, Lille, France
Dutch House, Netherlands
Educatorium, Utrecht, Netherlands
De Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Maison à Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France
Breda Carré Building, Breda, Netherlands
Prada New York, New York, USA
Netherlands Embassy, Berlin, Germany
IIT – Mccormick Tribune Campus Center, Chicago, USA
Dee And Charles Wyly Theater, Dallas, USA
Leeum Museum, Seoul, South Korea
Souterrain Tram Tunnel, The Hague, Netherlands
Seoul National University Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea
Casa da Musica, Porto, Portugal
Serpentine Gallery Pavillion, London, UK
Zollverein Kohlenwäsche, Essen, Germany
Prada Transformer, Seoul, South Korea
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