Word: architecting
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BELINDA LUSCOMBE, who usually writes about celebrities for TIME's People page, this week takes on a less well-publicized type of artist--the architect. "Stars get covered in the media all the time, so they're sick of it," says Luscombe. "Architects are very eager to talk to the press. On the other hand, they're used to expressing themselves in buildings, so sometimes you need a translator." Luscombe comes equipped with two; her husband Jeremy Edmiston and her brother Guy are architects. "There's a lot of excitement among young architects about Rem Koolhaas," says Luscombe...
...ARCHITECTS GENERALLY ARE dour people. Since they're half professionals, half artists, neither side of them is ever entirely content. But Rem Koolhaas, the Dutch-born architect-prophet whom today's young architects most want to grow up to be, is smiling. He's thinking about the deep, vision-supporting pockets of his first American client, MCA-Universal, which has appointed him to oversee plans for most of a $3 billion expansion of Universal City in California. Why choose Koolhaas? "I think it's because of his grandfather," says Koolhaas of Edgar Bronfman Jr., grandson of the man who asked...
...many ways Bronfman's selection of Koolhaas is indeed as bold as his grandfather's choice of a modernist in 1954. After all, architects who refuse to condemn suburban mall sprawl and who favor cheap industrial materials aren't usually the beneficiaries of high-corporate patronage. Which isn't to imply that there are many--or even any--architects quite like Koolhaas. Some would label his disorienting, asymmetric buildings deconstructivist; he likes to consider himself an architect without style. For him, form not only doesn't follow function; the two are barely on speaking terms...
...Koolhaas, the most important factor affecting contemporary architecture is globalization. "For the first time," he says, "an architect can build all over the world." He lives in London (though he spends much of the year in hotels), has an office in Rotterdam and runs an ongoing research project at Harvard that studies the Pearl River Delta, a rapidly emerging urban area in China. "It's clear," he maintains, "that you shouldn't just import; you should use the cultural potential of each country in such a way that it synthesizes with your interests. The MCA project is a beautiful project...
...even when his clients have money, Koolhaas doesn't spend it on materials. The Villa Dall'Ava, outside Paris, cost $485,000, yet the architect still used orange plastic webbing, familiar from construction sites, for a balustrade on the roof. One room on the ground floor is surrounded on three sides by glass, which can be opened to the outside or enclosed by a curtain--almost like a hospital bed--for more intimacy. The clients asked for a "masterpiece," and they got an adventure. Neighbors, on the other hand, so opposed the plan that the house had to be fought...