Dialogue
Book presentation Rem Before Koolhaas
Journalism by an Architect
During this book presentation, there will be contributions from author Antonio Cantero and architectural historian Beatriz Colomina, followed by a conversation with Rem Koolhaas, Antonio Cantero, Beatriz Colomina, and Professor of Architecture Mark Wigley.
Rem before Koolhaas: Journalism by an Architect is a book by Antonio Cantero about Rem Koolhaas’s early work as a journalist in the sixties. Offering a fresh look at this period and including a new interview with Koolhaas, Cantero explores how Koolhaas’s interviews often became essayistic pieces that register power dynamics, social realities and cultural shifts within a specific media ecology.
Haagse Post 1963-1967
Rem before Koolhaas is the first book to uncover Rem Koolhaas’s early work as a journalist for Haagse Post between 1963 and 1967. Featuring original Haagse Post layouts and first-time English translations, Cantero’s book reveals Koolhaas as both an observer of his time and an interviewer for whom writing became a space for learning.
Rather than treating journalism as a biographical precursor to his architectural career, Rem before Koolhaas presents it not as a professional identity but as a retrospective position from which this body of work can be read on its own terms.
Speakers
Dr. Antonio Cantero is an architect and assistant professor of architecture at TU Delft.
Beatriz Colomina is an internationally renowned architectural historian and theorist who has written and curated extensively on questions of architecture, art, technology, sexuality, and media.
Rem Koolhaas is an architect, urban planner and essayist. He co-founded the Office for Metropolitan Architecture and is Harvard Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design. Having worked as a journalist and script writer before becoming an architect, Koolhaas graduated from the Architectural Association in London.
Mark Wigley is a teacher, theorist, writer and curator. He is Professor of Architecture and Dean Emeritus of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) at Columbia University.