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A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
Rem Koolhaas's Writing on Cities: Poetic Perception and Gnomic Fantasy
Rem Koolhaas's writing about cities attempts to communicate poetic perceptions of underlying fundamental realities. When the “poetry” is cut loose from the “perception,” the writing degenerates into melodramatic, romantic fantasy. When the emphasis is on perception, as it is particularly in the later essays on Atlanta, Singapore, and Generic Cities, the poetry—the depth and feeling—reinforces the astuteness of perceptive grasp. The weakness of Koolhaas's writing on cities can be understood as resulting from his unfortunate conviction that creative freedom, which he values above all, does not need to be engaged with otherness—that it needs, in fact, to be capricious, private fantasy ex nihilo, inscribed on a tabula rasa.
Rem Koolhaas's Writing on Cities: Poetic Perception and Gnomic Fantasy
Rem Koolhaas's writing about cities attempts to communicate poetic perceptions of underlying fundamental realities. When the “poetry” is cut loose from the “perception,” the writing degenerates into melodramatic, romantic fantasy. When the emphasis is on perception, as it is particularly in the later essays on Atlanta, Singapore, and Generic Cities, the poetry—the depth and feeling—reinforces the astuteness of perceptive grasp. The weakness of Koolhaas's writing on cities can be understood as resulting from his unfortunate conviction that creative freedom, which he values above all, does not need to be engaged with otherness—that it needs, in fact, to be capricious, private fantasy ex nihilo, inscribed on a tabula rasa.
Rem Koolhaas's Writing on Cities: Poetic Perception and Gnomic Fantasy
Saunders, William S. (author)
Journal of Architectural Education ; 51 ; 61-71
1997-09-01
11 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
Rem Koolhaas's Writing on Cities: Poetic Perception and Gnomic Fantasy
| British Library Online Contents | 1997
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| Online Contents | 1997
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