Begin by imagining a composition of mostly vertical elements. Between them, ovoid shapes float, intertwined. Condensing this (in)formal schizophrenia, there is a translucent cubic envelope sliced horizontally into six equal parts. An iconic Cartesian coordinate system contaminated by amorphous bubbles.
This could be the description of some radical architectural utopia by Archigram or Superstudio. But it is not. Instead, it is the proposal for the National Library of France (Très Grande Bibliothèque) designed by OMA in 1989. As the runner-up in the competition won by Dominique Perrault, Rem Koolhaas turned this project into a materialization of his vision of contemporary behavior, in which structure represents a freedom that is not only programmatic but also one of flows.
Defined by Koolhaas himself as “embryos in a technological placenta” (KOOLHAAS, 1995), the amorphous volumes that make up the project would concentrate the library's activities—auditorium, reading room, etc.—as independent elements. This is because everything related to structure and building services would be housed in vertical modules, granting complete freedom to the remaining elements. In his book Theoretical Anxiety and Design Strategies (2008), Rafael Moneo offers an interesting interpretation of this project, defining it as “a zoomorphic metaphor, if we take it as a body containing organs and viscera whose position does not seem to affect the final shape of the building.”
