Supposedly reluctant starchitect Rem Koolhaas talked with the NYT's Robin Pogrebin about the mutiny in his firm, OMA's NY office, which is headed by supposedly reluctant starchitect-in-training Josh Prince-Ramus. Since the completion of the office's Seattle Library in 2004, PR [sic] has been the subject of many articles in which he professes annoyance at being the subject of so many articles.
"But he [i.e., Koolhaas] said that he didn't seek this status, that stardom had been pressed on him by a media culture that craves major figures. 'In America the cult of celebrity makes the reality of a partnership harder to maintain,' he said."
PR concurs, "The media's desire to make everything about an individual doesn't reflect our reality." Damn media and their craving for starchitects.
Now if we could just do something about those damn clients: Said Bill Lively, the go-to guy for the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts, which is just getting underway, "'We're going to have a Koolhaas-O.M.A. theater.'"
And as the client on another big OMA project in the works, an arts center in Louisville, explained, "'The Koolhaas name obviously led us to the firm, but as I've learned over the years, you're working with individuals...I think Josh is a celebrity in his own right.'" Nice.
Joshua Prince-Ramus Leaving Koolhaas's O.M.A. to Start New Architecture Firm [nyt]
Previously: You can call me Rem
PS: archinect's forum called this story two months ago.
