Rem Koolhaas and Hans Ulrich Obrist launch new book Project Japan
LIVE from the New York Public Library
The Organization of Ambition or The Last Gasp: REM KOOLHAAS and HANS ULRICH OBRIST on Project Japan
A conversation instigated by Paul Holdengraber
Thursday, March 8, 7 p.m.
New York Public Library
Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, New York City
Tickets: nypl.org/live
In 1958, a group of young Japanese architects gathered for a barbecue to celebrate the completion of one of their revolutionary new buildings. This run-of-the-mill act of comradery—unthinkable among today’s relentlessly competing architects—led to the formation of a movement that would play a crucial role in the rebuilding and reimagining of postwar Japan: Metabolism.
In a conversation instigated by Paul Holdengraber, architect Rem Koolhaas—author of Delirious New York and founder of OMA—and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist—known for his exhibitions and his “endless conversation” with hundreds of artists and thinkers, racking up 2,000 hours of interviews since 1990—will discuss their new book Project Japan, part oral history and part documentation of Japan’s radical mode of nation building. Koolhaas, Obrist, and Holdengraber will explore the many lessons of Metabolism—the first non-western avant-garde movement—for today: how an activist state mobilized its best talents and meticulously planned the future of its cities, how the media adopted the architect as a serious agent of social change (rather than the hyped “starchitect”), how various disciplines—architecture, art, sociology, technology—collaborated to produce something new…
For more information on LIVE from the NYPL, including events with Werner Herzog, Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts & Simone Leigh, Claude Lanzmann, Eric Kandel, E.O. Wilson, and more, visit nypl.org/live.
Portraits above:
Rem Koolhaas by Dominik Gigler / Hans Ulrich Obrist by Yang Fudong, Shanghai, 2009.
