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The Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) is an international
architectural firm In the United States, an architectural firm or architecture firm is a business that employs one or more licensed architects and practices the profession of architecture; while in South Africa, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark and other countri ...
with offices in Rotterdam, New York, Hong Kong, Doha, and Australia. The firm is currently led by eight partners - Rem Koolhaas,
Reinier de Graaf Regnier de Graaf (English spelling), original Dutch spelling Reinier de Graaf, or Latinized Reijnerus de Graeff (30 July 164117 August 1673) was a Dutch physician, physiologist and anatomist who made key discoveries in reproductive biology. He ...
, Ellen van Loon, Shohei Shigematsu, Iyad Alsaka, Chris van Duijn, Jason Long, and managing partner and architect David Gianotten.


History

Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis started working together in the early 1970s at the Architectural Association, the London-based architecture school, where Koolhaas was a student and Zenghelis an instructor. Their first major project was the
utopia A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book '' Utopia'', describing a fictional island soc ...
n/
dystopia A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by Jeremy Bentham in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493). ...
n project ''Exodus, or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture'' (1972). This project proposed a linear structure, cutting through London like a knife. Other projects included City of the Captive Globe (1974), Hotel Sphinx (1975), New Welfare Island/Welfare Palace Hotel (1975–76),
Roosevelt Island Roosevelt Island is an island in New York City's East River, within the borough of Manhattan. It lies between Manhattan Island to the west, and the borough of Queens, on Long Island, to the east. Running from the equivalent of East 46th to ...
Redevelopment (1975) – all "paper" projects that were not (intended to be) built, and all located in
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
, the subject of Koolhaas's book ''Delirious New York, A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan'' (1975). OMA was founded in 1975 by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and Greek architect Elia Zenghelis, along with
Madelon Vriesendorp Madelon Vriesendorp (born 1945, Bilthoven) is a Dutch artist, painter, sculptor and art collector. She was married to Rem Koolhaas and best known as one of the co-founders of the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in the early 1970s (toge ...
and Zoe Zenghelis. The founding of OMA coincided with the firm's entry in the architectural design competition for a new Dutch parliament building in
The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...
in 1978, with
Zaha Hadid Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid ( ar, زها حديد ''Zahā Ḥadīd''; 31 October 1950 – 31 March 2016) was an Iraqi-British architect, artist and designer, recognised as a major figure in architecture of the late 20th and early 21st centu ...
. OMA was one of the first-prize winners (among some 10 others), and the project was widely discussed and published. The commission, however, was given to an architect who did not participate in the competition. The entry for the Dutch parliament competition was the first of a series of controversial and successful international competition entries by OMA in the 1980s that were not built by OMA.


OMA in the 1980s

OMA's first major commissions were The Netherlands Dance Theatre (1981) in The Hague and IJ-Plein Urban planning (1981–1988) in
Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...
. Due to change of location a second design for the Dance Theater was made in 1984. Once completed in 1987, the building received international attention. Although full of "first mistakes", the Dance Theater is the first realized design in which the ideas of Rem Koolhaas were made apparent. IJ-plein is located at Amsterdam's IJ, a river that serves as the city's waterfront, opposite the city center. The master plan consists of 1,300 dwellings and several facilities. OMA designed the school, the community center, and two blocks of housing. A few other designs were realized in the 1980s: a police station in
Almere Almere () is a planned city and municipality in the province of Flevoland, Netherlands, located about 20 km to the east of Amsterdam (as the crow flies) across the IJmeer. Bordering Lelystad and Zeewolde, the municipality of Almere compr ...
(1982–1985), a bus station in
Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte (river), Rotte'') is the second largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the Prov ...
(1985–1987, demolished in 2005), Byzantium apartment block in Amsterdam (1985–1991) and Checkpoint Charlie Housing in
Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...
(1984–1990). Two houses were built in this period; the first house was a duo of patio villas (1985–1988) in the style of Mies van der Rohe, inserted in a dike in Rotterdam. The second – arguably the most full-grown design of OMA until that date – was Villa Dall'Ava in Paris (1984–1991). The client, according to Koolhaas, asked for a "masterpiece". He wanted a glass house. She wanted a swimming pool on the roof. So many delays plagued the house that it "became a record of our own (OMA's) growing up". Several studies were made during the late 1970s and 1980s: Study for the renovation of a
panopticon The panopticon is a type of institutional building and a system of control designed by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century. The concept of the design is to allow all prisoners of an institution to be o ...
prison in Arnhem in 1979, ''Boompjes'' tower slab in Rotterdam (1979), Housing for Berlin IBA (1980, not realised, and the reason OMA would not design anything in Berlin anymore in the 20th century, the Dutch Embassy Building being the comeback), master plan for a world exhibition in Paris (1983). Much more important however were the competition entries OMA designed in this period. They gained the office international fame (but not one design was actually built).


OMA in the 1990s

In the 1990s OMA gained renown through a series of groundbreaking entries in major competitions: e.g., Tres Grande Bibliothèque and Two Libraries for
Jussieu University Pierre and Marie Curie University (french: link=no, Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie, UPMC), also known as Paris 6, was a public research university in Paris, France, from 1971 to 2017. The university was located on the Jussieu Campus in the La ...
, Paris, France (1993). During these years OMA also realized ambitious projects, ranging from private residences to large scale urban plans: Villa dall’Ava, Paris, France (1991), Nexus Housing, Fukuoka, Japan (1991), Kunsthal, Rotterdam (1992). The
Euralille Euralille is an urban quarter in the centre of Lille, France. Conceived as a major European business district in the 1980s, it is strategically located at the intersection of the high-speed railway lines linking Paris, Brussels, and London, and ...
(1994), a 70-hectare business and civic center in
Lille Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the No ...
, northern France comprising the European hub for high-speed trains, transformed a once dormant center of more than 50 million inhabitants into a site offering connectivity, and a range of contemporary activities. In 1999 OMA completed the Maison à Bordeaux, a villa for a client in the hills outside
Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefectu ...
, France. The villa's most striking feature is a platform in the very center of the house that moves freely between the three floors and allowed the client to move with his wheelchair on all three levels of the villa. The design was conceived in collaboration with engineer
Cecil Balmond Cecil Balmond OBE is a Sri Lankan–British designer, artist, and writer. In 1968 Balmond joined Ove Arup & Partners, leading him to become deputy chairman. In 2000 he founded design and research group, the AGU (Advanced Geometry Unit). He cur ...
.


OMA in the 21st century

OMA's recently completed projects include Axel Springer Campus in Berlin (2020), MEETT Exhibition and Convention Centre in Toulouse (2020), Galleria in Gwanggyo (2020), Brighton College (2020), Norra Tornen in Stockholm (2020), Potato Head Studios in Bali (2020), nhow Amsterdam RAI Hotel (2020), WA Museum Boola Bardip in Perth (2019), BLOX ? DAC in Copenhagen (2018), Fondation Galeries Lafayette in Paris (2018), Fondazione Prada in Milan (2018) and
Qatar National Library Qatar National Library (QNL) is a non-profit organization under the umbrella of the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development.Qatar National Library.About the library." Retrieved 2014-12-14. The plans for the new national ...
(2017). OMA was awarded the contract for the Seattle Central Library, completed in 2005, despite not having been on the list of firms originally invited to submit designs. Former partner and Seattle resident Joshua Prince-Ramus, heard from his mother about the meeting for interested firms at the last minute and flew in from the Netherlands. This 11-story glass and steel building is a striking addition to the
Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...
cityscape. In Asia, OMA completed the massive Central China Television Headquarters building in Beijing, and the new building for the
Shenzhen Stock Exchange The Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE; ) is a stock exchange based in the city of Shenzhen, in the People's Republic of China. It is one of three stock exchanges operating independently in Mainland China, the others being the Beijing Stock Exch ...
. In January 2009 OMA won the competition to build the Taipei Performing Arts Center in Taiwan, completed and opened in 2022. In October 2011, the Barbican Art Gallery launched their exhibition "OMA/Progress", the first major presentation of OMA's work in the UK, curated by Belgium-based creative collective Rotor.


AMO

In 1998, Rem Koolhaas and Reinier de Graaf founded AMO, a
think tank A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-govern ...
within OMA dedicated to producing non-architectural work including exhibitions, branding campaigns, publishing, and energy planning. AMO has produced exhibitions at the
Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
(on the Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg) and Venice Architecture Biennale (on the development of the Gulf, and, in 2010, on preservation), and guest-edited issues of the magazines '' Wired'' and '' Domus''. AMO has produced work for
Universal Studios Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Americ ...
,
Amsterdam Airport Schiphol Amsterdam Airport Schiphol , known informally as Schiphol Airport ( nl, Luchthaven Schiphol, ), is the main international airport of the Netherlands. It is located southwest of Amsterdam, in the municipality of Haarlemmermeer in the provinc ...
,
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
,
Condé Nast Condé Nast () is a global mass media company founded in 1909 by Condé Montrose Nast, and owned by Advance Publications. Its headquarters are located at One World Trade Center in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan. The company's m ...
, Heineken, and
IKEA IKEA (; ) is a Dutch multinational conglomerate based in the Netherlands that designs and sells , kitchen appliances, decoration, home accessories, and various other goods and home services. Started in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA has been ...
. AMO projects also include the development of in-store technology for
Prada Prada S.p.A. (, ; ) is an Italian luxury fashion house founded in 1913 in Milan by Mario Prada. It specializes in leather handbags, travel accessories, shoes, ready-to-wear, and other fashion accessories. Prada licenses its name and branding t ...
, a strategy for the future of
Volkswagen Volkswagen (),English: , . abbreviated as VW (), is a German Automotive industry, motor vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front under the Nazi Party and revived into a ...
, a strategy for TMRW, work for Platform 21, new design institute in Amsterdam, a curatorial master plan for the
Hermitage Museum The State Hermitage Museum ( rus, Государственный Эрмитаж, r=Gosudarstvennyj Ermitaž, p=ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)ɨj ɪrmʲɪˈtaʂ, links=no) is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is the larges ...
in St. Petersburg, and ''Roadmap 2050: A Practical Guide to a Prosperous, Low-Carbon Europe''. In 2008 AMO curated the exhibition "Dubai Next" at the Vitra Design Museum in
Weil am Rhein Weil am Rhein ( High Alemannic: ''Wiil am Rhii'') is a German town and commune. It is on the east bank of the River Rhine, and extends to the point at which the Swiss, French and German borders meet. It is the most southwesterly town in Germany ...
, and was one of the editors on the book ''Al Manakh'', which details the rapid transformation of the Gulf region. In 2010 in collaboration with Archis and Think Tank, AMO made the follow-up, ''Al Manakh 2''.


Notable works


Seattle Central Library

In 1999 OMA won a competition to design a new central library for the city of Seattle. The Seattle Central Library was completed and opened to the public on May 23, 2004. In 2005, the library earned a national
American Institute of Architects The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to s ...
Honor Award for Architecture. The building has also been described as "the most important new library to be built in a generation, and the most exhilarating" by '' New Yorker'' architecture critic Paul Goldberger.


Casa da Música, Porto

Completed in 2005, the new home of the National Orchestra of Porto, the Casa da Música, stands on a new public square in the historic Rotunda da Boavista. With a distinct faceted form, ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' critic Nicolai Ouroussoff called it "a building whose intellectual ardor is matched by its sensual beauty". Inside, the elevated 1,300-seat Grand Auditorium, in the shape of a shoebox, has corrugated glass façades at either end that open the hall to the city and offer Porto itself as a dramatic backdrop for performances. As well as the Grand Auditorium, conceived as a simple mass hollowed out end-to-end from the solid form of the building, the Casa da Música also contains a smaller, more flexible performance space with no fixed seating.


Netherlands Embassy, Berlin

Winner of the 2005 Mies van der Rohe Award (the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture), OMA's Netherlands Embassy in Berlin is an isolated cube surrounded on two sides by a perimeter wall. The cube is punctured by a cantilevered meeting room and the visibility of the zig-zagging, interior path through the building.


European flag proposal

Following the signing of Treaties of Nice in May 2001, the then-President of the
European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...
,
Romano Prodi Romano Antonio Prodi (; born 9 August 1939) is an Italian politician, economist, academic, senior civil servant, and business executive who served as the tenth president of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004. He served twice as Pr ...
, and Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, Koolhaas suggested a European flag, called the "Barcode". The Barcode unites the flags of the EU countries into a single, colorful symbol. In the current European flag, there is a fixed number of stars. In the Barcode, however, new Member States of the EU can be added without space constraints. Originally, the Barcode displayed 15 EU countries, and in 2004 the symbol was adapted to include ten new Member States. Croatia was added in 2013. The Barcode was officially used for the first time during the 2006 Austrian Presidency of the Council of the European Union.


Current projects

, OMA's current projects included:


Europe


North America


Asia and Oceania


Asia Pacific


Middle East

* Al Daayan Health District Masterplan, Doha, Qatar * HIA Airport City, Doha, Qatar * Wafra Tower, Kuwait City, Kuwait


Gallery

File:Villa dall'Ava.jpg, Villa dall'Ava,
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...
, France, OMA File:NexusWorldHousing1992Anonymous.png, Nexus World Housing,
Fukuoka is the sixth-largest city in Japan, the second-largest port city after Yokohama, and the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. The city is built along the shores of Hakata Bay, and has been a center of international commerce since anc ...
, Japan, OMA File:Kunsthal Rotterdam.JPG, Kunsthal,
Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte (river), Rotte'') is the second largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the Prov ...
, The Netherlands, OMA File:Uithof, 3584 Utrecht, Netherlands - panoramio (19).jpg, Educatorium,
Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the fourth-largest city and a municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, in the very centre of mainland Net ...
, The Netherlands, OMA File:MAISON À BORDEAUX.jpg, Maison à Bordeaux, France, OMA File:Be Dutch Embassy 01.JPG, Embassy of the Netherlands,
Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...
, Germany, OMA
File:McCormick Tribune Campus Center.jpg, McCormick Tribune Campus Center,
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...
, United States, OMA
File:SCL2.JPG, Seattle Central Library,
Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...
, United States, OMA
File:Casa da musica.JPG, Casa da Música,
Porto Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropo ...
, Portugal, OMA
File:Distant view of the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre (edited).jpg, Dee and Charles Wyly Theater,
Dallas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County ...
, US, OMA File:De Rotterdam, September 2019 - 01.jpg, De Rotterdam,
Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte (river), Rotte'') is the second largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the Prov ...
, The Netherlands, OMA File:G-Star Raw.jpg, G-Star Raw Headquarters,
Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...
, The Netherlands, OMA File:Timmerhuis.jpg,
Timmerhuis The Timmerhuis (formerly Stadstimmerhuis) is a building complex in the Stadsdriehoek district in the center of Rotterdam. The building is a combination of post-World War II reconstruction architecture by municipal architect J.R.A. Koops and conte ...
,
Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte (river), Rotte'') is the second largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the Prov ...
, The Netherlands, OMA File:Holland Green.jpg, Holland Green,
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, UK, OMA File:RAI Hotel.jpg, nhow Amsterdam RAI Hotel,
Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...
, The Netherlands, OMA File:Norra Tornen1.jpg, Norra Tornen,
Stockholm Stockholm () is the capital and largest city of Sweden as well as the largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.6 million in the urban area, and 2.4 million in the metropo ...
, Sweden, OMA File:Taipei Performing Arts Center construction site 20190629.jpg, Taipei Performing Arts Center, Taipei, Taiwan, OMA
File:Mangalem 21.jpg, Mangalem 21,
Tirana Tirana ( , ; aln, Tirona) is the capital and largest city of Albania. It is located in the centre of the country, enclosed by mountains and hills with Dajti rising to the east and a slight valley to the northwest overlooking the Adriatic Sea ...
, Albania, OMA


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Office For Metropolitan Architecture Architecture firms of the Netherlands Design companies established in 1975 1975 establishments in the Netherlands Rem Koolhaas