Send More Architects That Nobody Has Ever Heard Of

While I find Rem Koolhaas writing compelling in its’ fervent argumentation and colorful language, it falls short when in the attempt to build a convincing case for operating in the so-called ‘Generic City’. This collection of declarative statements are suggested to be absolute truth without any real substance to back them up. We are supposed to take it all on his word, the authority perhaps granted by celebrity or notoriety. There is no detailed breakdown of a specific observation or a case study in the writing. Perhaps we can extract this from the material content of “S,M,L,XL” although it can be argued that it is not made very clear in the body of the book either. At any rate, I am left wondering how to qualify terms such as beauty, uninteresting, and even “generic”.

In the work by Hajer and Reinjndorp, there is an attempt to quantify and analyze the characteristics of what they, and other designers, consider great space. It is an introduction to what appears to be an analysis and documentation of desirable qualities of public places. It suggests that this will be backed by empirical research and data.” However, this still does not seem to consider the realities of “public”, or perhaps as Margaret Crawford suggests, multiple “publics. It is more of a top down approach, that suggests the designer knows what is best for everyone, their knowledge to be bestowed upon the masses, like it or not.

Both pieces suffer from a god complex that is disconcerting when glancing around at what has been 'granted' to the city to date. Rem seems to make an argument for embracing what has been inherited, even allowing for it to continue. But will he himself attempt to perpetuate it? No. In the end, neither the cynicism of the Koolhaus, nor the arrogance of Hajer and Reinjndorp, offer real solutions to our urban dystopia.