Although he was born in Rotterdam, Rem Koolhaas spent four years of his youth in Indonesia, where his father served as cultural director. Following in the footsteps of his literary father, Koolhaas began his career as a writer. He was a journalist for the
Haase Post in The Hague, and later tried his hand at writing movie scripts.
Koolhaas's writings won him fame in the field of architecture before he completed a single building. After after graduating from the Architecture Association School in London, he accepted a research fellowship in the United States. During his visit, he wrote Delirious New York, which he described as a "retroactive manifesto for Manhattan" and which critics hailed as a classic text on modern architecture and society.
In 1975, Koolhaas founded the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in London with Madelon Vriesendorm and Elia and Zoe Zenghelis. Focusing on contemporary design, the company won a competition for an addition to the Parliament in The Hague and a major commission to develop a master plan for a housing quarter in Amsterdam.
Delirious New York was reprinted in 1994 under the title Rem Koolhaas and the Place of Modern Architecture. The same year, Koolhaas published S,M,L,XL in collaboration with the Canadian graphic designer Bruce Mau. Described as a novel about architecture, the book combines works produced by Koolhaas's Office for Metropolitan Architecture with photos, plans, fiction, cartoons and random thoughts.
Rem Koolhaas has been called in turns Modernist and Deconstructivist, yet many critics claim that he leans toward Humanism. Koolhaas's work searches for a link between technology and humanity. Koolhaas was awarded the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2000.
