The new collection ‘Portraits’, edited by Arquitectura Viva, includes different texts by Luis Fernández-Galiano on the life and work of a group of contemporary architects. Surrealist Koolhaas is the third title of the same, after those dedicated to Rafael Moneo and Norman Foster, and in successive installments the rest will appear, about Renzo Piano, Frank Gehry, Herzog & de Meuron, Peter Eisenman and Santiago Calatrava. Illustrated with drawings by the architects themselves, and enriched with in-depth interviews, biographical reviews and analysis of the works, these little books want to offer pixelated portraits of current masters, informative and critical at the same time.
The book 'Koolhaas surrealista', with 96 pages and a soft cover, collects seventeen texts that cover the work and the person of Rem Koolhaas. The collection of articles on the Rotterdam architect is introduced with ‘Exquisite Cádaver’, which accounts both for his surrealist instincts and the disjointed nature of his career, where books and exhibitions mark intellectual and formal breakdowns. Thus, comments on the publications —from the pioneer Delirious New York or the bestseller S, M, L, XL to Pearl River Delta, Content or Elements— are interspersed with criticism of the buildings and projects —the Casa da Música in Porto , the Guggenheims in Las Vegas, the Prada stores, the Seattle library and the proposals for the city of Córdoba or for New York Ground Zero— and it is not clear which are ultimately more important in defining his conceptual itinerary. and aesthetic. His retour à l ’ordre with the great exhibition of the Venetian Biennial suggests a last turn in the dazzling, provocative and paradoxical career, and the detailed analysis of him is dedicated to the detailed text that closes the volume.
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