I am pleased to have rem koolhaas back at this table. Welcome. We missed out two years ago when you were in venice. It continues to be a great life for you. A great life. Rem it is an amazing life because it really enables me to be at places where things are radically changing. Or when there is a need to articulate a particular ambition. Or whether there is a need to intervene in a situation. It is really a great sequence of opportunity. Charlie what you do, you have to define the time we are in. Or what we are missing, even. Rem yes, but o see my role as more of a reporter who is simply alert and describing changes. You findscribed it, the opportunities where to intervene. Part of being in that moment in time when things are changing from one condition to another. Charlie you began life as a writer, didnt you . Rem as a journalist. As an interviewer. Charlie you mean i have hope as an architect . Rem you could. [laughter] charlie at 71, you are going strong. I just mentioned the big products you have going this year. Rem maybe i go strong, but i am part of a large organization. Or, office. I think i could never do what i do, we could never do what we do without our collaborators. The average age of the office is maybe 32. So, maybe i am getting older, but there is this really charlie at the same time you have people who come to work with you and then go off to do great things on their own. Rem i have enabled many people to emancipate themselves from our environment. [laughter] your early collaborator city recently said of you recently, i love rem. It is very important to have lived in the time of rem. How do you you are a legend. Rem basically, i am dutch, and that means i am incapable of dealing with those questions charlie the dutch cannot handle praise . Rem they cannot handle praise. They cannot receive celebrity. Therefore they are a safe haven for that kind of speculation. Charlie you keep your base in rotterdam. Because it keeps your feet on the ground. Rem completely immune to who we are, completely indifferent to who we are. We live in a luxurious life of indifference. An indifferent environment, therefore we are totally free. Charlie someone else said, you remain a firstrate provocateur and you do. You have been that all your life. Rem i do not know if it is an issue of star sign. Charlie star sign . I dont think so. Rem i think it is not provocation. Charlie dna. Rem it is partly dna, intellectual interest to formulate what the issues are. And that enables me to name what the issues are. That particular ability to name them will of course create provocation because it may not be that the world is ready to draw the same conclusions. Charlie when some people suggested you work more like a theorist or a conceptual artist than an architect. Do you say yes, that is that right . Rem we operate in a wide range of things. Charlie the world of ideas is where you start. Rem yes, but at the same time you see that in the world around us, fewer and fewer professions retained their previous identity. Many streams are getting blurred. I am benefiting from that blur. I am benefiting from the fact currently, people are willing, not only to consider a predefined profession or a predefined territory or role, but are willing to experiment and to kind of see how things can be combined or redefined or reinvented. Charlie that is what you have done all your life. How can i redefine the way we think of space . How can i redefine the way we think of old and new . How do i think about redefining the relationship between urban and rural . Rem i am really lucky to live in this time. It is not me, but the time itself is redefining all of those conditions. Charlie you have resisted the idea of a singular aesthetic. Rem i have tried to. Charlie some would argue that is what frank has done. They have a single aesthetic. You may disagree with that. But some would say that. You resist that. Even allowing anyone to think that. Rem we love camouflage. We are not always interested to assert our own identity in every condition. And we think that architecture is a very interesting combination of imposition and yielding. You yield to an environment. You yield to a context. You also absorb givens from it or a set of needs that exist. For this reason, i think there is maybe a subtlety that means that we need to be different in every case because every case is different. Charlie if i went to beijing with a group of architects, architects know the history of architecture, they know the identification of artists, and i showed them cctv, would they say, i know that is koolhaas . I mean, before everybody knew it was such a popular and identifiable building. With a know it is yours . Rem you would have to try. Charlie what do you think . Is there something in that building other than the fact that is so different, would define it . It was aaybe huge challenge. Therefore, i tried to accept every part of the challenge. So therefore, it is the kind of building that has not only one dimension, is not only a shape, it is also an organization, a feat of engineering, also an identity that is not stable, its also a building that looks completely different from every side. Its a very complex entity, and perhaps people would recognize that complexity as a characteristic. Charlie how did you win that commission . Rem it was very interesting. The competition was run by a very Young Chinese lady who studied International Law in oxford, 35yearsold. She called me one day and said were going to do a contest. We will invite five foreigners and five chinese people. Europeans and two one japanese it was very specific. [laughter] we wanted to be a completely honest process. Speaking to her, i had confidence there was a Real Intelligence there. There was a jury. The jury selected us. Then there was an interesting period when the issue became how to convince the government and the different parties in government that this was the right step. That was also orchestrated by her in terms of meetings with chinese politicians. Sure the product, talking them through it. I stayed for a long time in beijing to do it. Slowly, but surely, we were able to convince people. Charlie what is interesting too is that recently xi jinping said, we have too many weird buildings. Rem in a way, it is very weird that politicians talk about architecture. In that sense i found it encouraging. So, and of course, we became associated with weird buildings syndrome. [laughter] and of course, the building is a n original building, but also a very serious building and i can say in confidence that cctv was visited by one of the chinese ministers who came to the conclusion that it was a sincere and serious contribution to china. So, the weird stigma has been taken away. So, that is a good thing, i think. Rlie what is interesting you and i talked about this right before we turned the cameras on, you won the competition. Five other people lost. They invested as much time as you did. They cared deeply. They thought about it. They listened. They pushed and shoved and imagined and reimagined. Rem some of them were my friends, or are my friends. Some of the projects were incredibly amazing and exciting. Charlie my dream is to put together and have an exhibition from the best architects in the world, all the projects that did not get selected. It is not a perfect process. That wins or loses. It has to do with a range of Human Emotions and experience and education and politics, all of that. Wouldnt it be great to see all of the buildings we never saw . The only person who ever saw was the architect. Rem it is interesting to compete, per se. There is a compelling argument that actually by competing, you get the best. But it is also significant that some of our most imaginative buildings were not able to convince people at the right moment. The things we did 10 years ago might be accepted today. An inherento sadness in the whole thing. But by being a writer, i was able to reduce that sadness and still use or convey the contents or the meaning of certain things. I think it is very important as an architect, that atcually building something is so rare, you develop forms of communication or forms of presentation to make sure things dont simply disappear. Charlie are you happiest writing or building . Designing . Teaching . Rem its two completely different forms of happiness. In the first case, it is the happiness over teamwork and collaboration. I can sincerely say i have worked to bring people together and i have had the most stimulating and amazing i never would have had on my own. Simply through the construction of collaboration, you are pushed in a different direction. It is a wonderful feeling. At the same time it is wonderful to be a monk in a cell and to have a feeling you are actually capturing a new reality or an insight in the world of ideas. In the world of ideas. Or in the world of observation. Charlie do you think of you as more of an observational character or innovative character . Rem i am bad with or. I try to be both and i think it is necessary to be both. Analytical am an person. It is very often what triggers the innovation or the invention. You cant say im this or that. It is the basis for new thinking. Charlie here are some things you have said. You have admitted you are somewhere between bored and irritated by the current course of architecture. E rick aided irritated and bored. Rem maybe i will take the last thing back. [laughter] not a first one. Not the first one. Charlie irritated, but not necessarily bored. You also said architecture today is forcing people to be extravagant even if they do not want to or need to. That is to satisfy some client . Rem the important thing is until the 1960s or even part of the 1970s, we were connected to a public client. In a sort of way, we could be complacent or be convinced that we were actually serving the general cause. I think since the enormous escalation of the market economy, we are working more and more with private individuals. Charlie rather than the state. And we have more and more people with a lot of money. Rem for that reason alone we are no longer we are not playing the same role. We are playing a totally different role. In a different and new role, we sometimes have to build items because it is important to a particular brand or we have to build a building that nobody else has seen before because that is the source of pride. Basically the ambitions have simplyradically changed through the effects of the marketing economy. Charlie you also embrace the idea of preservation. As somehow helping to find a new relationship with architecture. Go ahead. Rem it is almost like there is such an expectation that we do extravagant things. That actually it is very nice to discover a more modest terrain where we can intervene and if we add something, we add only a few new things rather than entirely new things. It is very interesting to me in that sense. If you work on preservation, you discover in terms of dimensions or in terms of scale in the past, things were possible that are no longer possible. It is also a rational step because for instance, in the foundation, we had to be so enormous that it became a key part of the project. From scratch, we could never have done. That generosity, we were able to capture and give it new life. Charlie we will talk about both of those buildings later those museums. Were you surprised as you delved into it . Soviet architecture . Soviet culture . Rem i came to moscow for the first time in 1967. And i was unaware of the history of soviet architecture. I became aware of the radical interpretation of architecture. Really reinvented daily life from scratch. Therefore from the beginning, i was less interested in form, but in the role in architecture in helping to define daily life. That really triggered me. At the time, i was also a scriptwriter. It was a discovery that architecture is actually also a form of script writing. Because for an architect, basically, this is a living room and here is the staircase and there is the kitchen. So, implicitly, you describe a scene or a relationship. That made it a very easy switch. Charlie preservation and modernist architecture are intwined. Rem the interesting thing about preservation, we previously thought the world was divided into architects who make and preservationist who tried to sabotage the architect. When i looked into preservation, i discovered preservation was part and parcel of the whole process of modernization. It was invented just after the french revolution. Charlie preservation . Rem preservation. And basically it makes perfect sense. You also have to decide what to keep. Preservation is a form of selection. Actually, you have to understand it as part of modernization itself. When we discovered that, it became really creative territory. Charlie what does conventional beauty mean to you . Rem unfortunately, there, also i am dutch. [laughter] it is very difficult to really talk about conventional beauty. What we prefer or what we are more comfortable with, is to discover the beauty of organization or the beauty of an artificial landscape. Or the beauty of a system that has windmills and turns a lake into land. In all of those steps, there is really an aesthetic. The aesthetic of the modern. And so, yes, there are maybe moments that we tried to be addressing the issue of beauty. For instance in the product foundation, we covered a small tower in gold leaf, simply as a form of recognition. With the explicit intention to create beauty. Otherwise, for me, beauty is the combination of imagination and rational organization. Charlie imagination and rational organization. Do you have an ordered mind . Rem i can be very ordered. But i can also be chaotic when i want to. Charlie the reason i ask that take musicians, who will tell me that in order for them to be they have to understand the order of music in order to be creative about music. There has to be a discipline, a discipline, and a sense of order in the way things are in order to be able to create something that is fresh. Rem of course, architecture liz within many regimes. We begin in the regime of gravity. Gravity is very, very strong and cannot be reversed or reinvented. Everything we do, we do within that regime. Also have to, we live in the regime of acoustics. I think that all architects have to be disciplined, but also have to know the importance of escaping from the discipline. Charlie you ever dissatisfied with a building . Are you a filmmaker who says to me, i always see Something Else i could have done . Rem actually, the moment you are building, the engagement is deep and profound. When things are over and open, i can let it go and almost enjoy it as an outsider. Charlie really . Without knowing what might have been. Rem im not constantly going, oh my god, that could have been i was saying this morning, i am a realist, i am able to enjoy reality. So therefore, sometimes, in the best cases, our buildings become a reality. Charlie that would mean youre always also efficient. Rem i am efficient when i have to be. Inefficient charlie efficient when you have to be in order to be inefficient when you want to be. Take a look at this. Show the prada building. Describe this to me. What am i looking at . An old space. The youre looking at Industrial Complex that has a series of factory elements. Inside that compound, building two new things. One you cannot see because it is a box. The second one, you can see it emerging, which is the tower. Which introduces vertical spaces in this horizontal entity. In order to create both excitement, beauty, and an exceptional moment, this small tower is in gold. Internet to be a really efficient decision because gold is so reflective. Its aura permeates the entire space. If you are close to it, you look like a god. Charlie like a god. [laughter] you are going to give so many people ideas. You cannot really tell if you are in an old building or a new one. Rem the impression was to make created a where we seamless situation where you are never quite sure where you are. Charlie at the same time you wanted to make this a single entity. Rem a single complex. Where you are constantly in changes spaces, sometimes very narrow, sometimes expanding, sometimes horizontal. So, it is a sequence of spatial experiences. Charlie does this present new opportunities for displaying art . Rem i think it does. Simply because it is not betting on only one or two special conditions. What we were able to do is vary the situation. For instance, one sequence of rooms deliberately starts with very small rooms and every next room is bigger. That sequence goes on for seven or eight rooms. Although the nature of the building each painting or each sculpture looks completely different in each of these spaces. Charlie look at this. Tell me what i am seeing. Rem what you are seeing here this is quite original. The opening exhibition was an exhibition about roman sculpture. What was interesting about roman sculpture is that they all are greek examples. The roman sculptural art is the art of copying. They were able to assemble many copies of the same kind of sculpture. Was way, what they showed strong qualities of originality with a generic approach. You see a filter it is part see is a filter inside a new building where you see your horizon is defined by distant buildings. It is part of this relationship between old and new where you are never quite sure where you are. Charlie let me see the next slide. Quickly. Rem again, this is part of prada. They are not about only one thing, but they are about the diversity of things. And so what they did in the same sense of the exhibition, when it was over, they asked the ballet dancer in the same space. It was an extremely moving moment. Was over, they it sort of became alive. Charlie now we go to the garage in moscow. How did this come about . Was this a competition . Rem this was not a competition. Charlie not at all. He was a very independent kind of person. He came to us and simply asked us to work with her on the replacement of the garage. The garage was a kind of building of soviet architecture of the 1920s, and it had been abandoned. With her, we look for this opportunity and found a ruinedely brewing restaurant of the 1960s and came to the conclusion that we could convert it into a museum space. Charlie this is near gorky park . Rem it is inside gorky park. Gorky park at the same time was being completely renovated. It is part of the modernization. Charlie you describe this as not restoring the building, but preserving its decay. Rem well, what we did is is not why a building becomes a ruin is an interesting question. Whether than making everything new charlie what is that . Rem it is a form of plastic that actually has a beautiful effect. It is reflective but also translucent. It creates an abstract version of what you see outside. If you are inside, you are aware that you are in the park, but you do not see the detail of the park, so you can focus what is on inside but youre still aware of the entire environment. Charlie next slide. Look at this. Rem so, this is what i meant with preserving decay. Theret kind of building was a soviet mural which represented one of the seasons. Conveyed aeneral, happy sense of communal life. And it was not entirely intact anymore. You see the patches of brick. Rather than restore it in its entirety, we wanted all to see what the building had gone through. Charlie remembering this i