REM: a documentary by tomas koolhaas about his father
rather than a sentimental expose, REM a documentary by tomas koolhaas, uses the privileged position of a father-son relationship to incisively explore ideas about the master architect’s work. while the film is slated for completion at the end of 2013, clips already reveal the los angeles-based filmmaker’s distinct insight into his father’s work, bolstered by a keen, human-focused documentation of the life that surrounds and envelops the buildings. the relationship of the moving image and the spatial experience is long established; however, ‘REM’ is laden with an insight afforded only to progeny.

 

often, the space of cinema is one where architecture ceases to exist, an idea directly confronted by the younger koolhaas with a cinematic method that makes the buildings a material of everyday life. documentation of the CCTV building focuses on the irrevocably human part of the architecture and resists the staunch intellectualism that design often begets, while the dubstep-laced short of de rotterdam humanizes a monumental work even as it rises. the introduction of the fourth dimension in the consideration of rem koolhaas’ buildings places the work as a distinctly human activity both from the perspective of architect-as-author and from the slew of lives that rhythmically breathe importance into the spaces.   

REM: a documentary by tomas koolhaas about his fatherall images courtesy of REM / tomas koolhaas

REM: a documentary by tomas koolhaas about his father
a view of CCTV and a demolished building

REM: a documentary by tomas koolhaas about his father
CCTV abstracted by the filmic lens

REM: a documentary by tomas koolhaas about his father
rem koolhaas, filmed by his son in front of maison bordeaux

REM: a documentary by tomas koolhaas about his father
the architect in his rotterdam office

REM: a documentary by tomas koolhaas about his father
view of the OMA rotterdam office

REM: a documentary by tomas koolhaas about his father
the younger koolhaas interviewed students at IIT which houses an OMA-designed extension

REM: a documentary by tomas koolhaas about his father
nexus housing in japan

REM: a documentary by tomas koolhaas about his father
tomas koolhaas films the residents of nexus housing in fukuoka

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