OMA's research and design practice AMO has opened True Me, the studio's first exhibition design in China. Built in the 798 Art Factory in Beijing, True Me explores modern selfie-culture and modes of self-representation through art and media. Organized by App developer Meitu and the Beijing Contemporary Arts Foundation, the exhibition features artworks by Hou Ying, Lu Yang, Maleonn, Xie Haiwei, Ye Funa, Chen Tianzhuo, teamLab, and Theodore Bradley. Celebrating the launch of Meitu’s new logo, the exhibition extends AMO’s interest in studying visual culture.
Photograph by Delfino Sisto Legnani and Marco Cappelletti. Image Courtesy of OMA
AMO, the research and think tank wing of OMA, has completed a flexible new exhibition space for the permanent collection of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Named Stedelijk BASE, the bespoke display system is constructed from “very thin yet solid” free-standing steel partitions that interlock like puzzle-pieces to create an open-ended flow for viewing art from the late 19th and 20th centuries.
Veduta di Palermo, Francesco Lojacono, 1875; Palermo Atlas. Image Courtesy of OMA
The creative mediators of Manifesta 12 have revealed the concept for next year’s Manifesta 12 biennial in Palermo.
Entitled The Planetary Garden. Cultivating Coexistence, the concept will explore “coexistence in a world moved by invisible networks, transnational private interests, algorithmic intelligence and ever-increasing inequalities through the unique lens of Palermo – a crossroads of three continents in the heart of the Mediterranean.”
The concept was derived from an earlier analysis conducted by OMA named the Palermo Atlas, which investigated the “social, cultural and geographical textures of the city.” The event will allow visitors to visualize contemporary global transformations through the lens of Palermo.
Countryside: Future of the World, a collaboration between Guggenheim and AMO / Rem Koolhaas examines radical changes transforming the non-urban landscape opens Fall 2019. Photo: Pieternel van Velden (Koppert Cress, The Netherlands 2011). Image Courtesy of Guggenheim
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum has announced a new research project exploring the “radical changes in the countryside, the vast nonurban areas of Earth” that will culminate in an exhibition at the museum’s Frank Lloyd Wright-designed New York home in Fall 2019.
Collaborating with Rem Koolhaas and his firm AMO, the think tank wing of OMA, the project will continue research already conducted by the Dutch architect and students from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
In this excerpt from Reinier de Graaf's new book Four Walls and a Roof: The Complex Nature of a Simple Profession (Harvard University Press), the all-pervasive work and pedagogical practice of Ernst Neufert is put under the spotlight. Was he an architect, a teacher, or something larger than both? In examining Neufert's ardent pursuit of the "norm", De Graaf sheds light on the impact and enduring legacy of the author of Architect’s Data.
His built output—a few industrial complexes, some housing projects, and the Quelle Mail Order headquarters in Nuremberg—is not much to speak of, but his name is known to every practicing architect: Ernst Neufert, author of Architect’s Data, more commonly referred to as Neufert. [1] If the importance of an architect equals the extent to which his work lives on in others, Neufert is the most important of the twentieth century. There is probably no architect who has not used Neufert, whether as a didactic tool or as a volume of references. It contains all the necessary information to design and execute works of architecture. Neufert is enduringly popular. As of 2016, it is in its forty-first German edition, has been translated into seventeen languages, and has sold over 500,000 copies. [2]
https://www.archdaily.com/881889/neufert-the-exceptional-pursuit-of-the-normReinier de Graaf
Manifesta 12 creative mediator OMA has revealed the Palermo Atlas, an interdisciplinary urban study of Palermo that will inform the organization of 12th edition of Manifesta, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art, that will be held next year in the Italian city. Led by OMA partner Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, the project outlines a blueprint for Palermo “to plan its future and as a research framework to ensure that Manifesta 12 achieves a long-term impact for the city and its citizens.”
A new exhibition by OMA/AMO, lR100-Rinascente: Stories of Innovation, has officially opened in Milan’s Palazzo Reale. Marking the 100th anniversary of the classic Italian department store, la Rinascente, the exhibition commemorates the company’s long creative history and experimental spirit that has served as an influential part of Italian design, culture and commerce.
For their latest fashion show scheme for Prada, AMO has gone “back to basics.” Envisioned for the fashion house’s 2017 Fall/Winter Collection, “Continuous Interior” borrows from domestic design, taking the form of a series of curving wooden partitions paired with ordinary materials and emblematic furniture pieces to create a stage that speaks to the importance of authenticity in the political climate of today.
OMA, led by partner Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, have been chosen as the "Creative Mediators" for the 12th edition of Manifesta, which will be held in Palermo in 2018. The practice will assemble an interdisciplinary team to investigate the role of governance in the Italian city, and address how contemporary urban centers are affected by tourism, gentrification, migration and climate change. They will also work "with specialists from the fields of contemporary art, sociology, music, cinema and architecture" to develop a series of "interactive, interdisciplinary, performative and artistic interventions."
https://www.archdaily.com/800045/oma-announced-as-creative-mediators-for-manifesta-12-in-palermoAD Editorial Team
Next Month, architecture will be hitting the mainstream media, as Bjarke Ingels has been selected to grace the cover of the September 2016 edition of WIRED UK. Titled “THINK BIGGER,” the issue will also feature profiles and stories from architects and designers Tom Dixon, Neri Oxman, David Adjaye and Rem Koolhaas. A Condé Nast Publication, the magazine focuses on the effects of science and technology on topics including design, architecture, culture, the economy, politics and philosophy.
At the recently concluded Moscow Urban Forum, Renier de Graaf shared his opinion on a range of topics, from UK’s Brexit and the EU identity to OMA’s work in Russia, particularly in shaping the recent growth of Moscow. De Graaf is a partner at OMA and as director of the firm’s Think Tank, AMO, he produced The Image of Europe, an exhibition hoping to portray a “bold, explicit and popular” European Union. Thus, it comes as no surprise that De Graaf, along with Rem Koolhaas, is particularly outspoken about the recent events within the European Union.
Installation in the Central Pavilion of the Giardini at the 2014 Venice Biennale, directed by OMA/AMO. Image Courtesy of OMA
The following interview with Reinier De Graaf was first published by Volume Magazine in their 48th issue, The Research Turn. You can read the Editorial of this issue, Research Horizons, here.
Architectural practice requires a degree of intimacy and insight into complex sets of forces. While building is architecture’s bread and butter, it’s not always the best format to make a statement. It’s sometimes not even the most appropriate language to respond to a brief. Volume spoke with Reinier de Graaf of OMA/AMO about how research and media can become a vessel for political agendas.
https://www.archdaily.com/789832/ulterior-motives-oma-amos-reinier-de-graaf-on-research-europe-and-the-2014-venice-biennaleReinier de Graaf
In the latest scenographic set for Prada's fashion collections, AMO have created a set "conceived as a stratification of architectures" – Total Space. Remnants from previous shows sit around the periphery of the room creating a foundation and aesthetic background for the house's 2017 Spring/Summer collection. A linear structure, which sits centrally and divides the room, is designed to "amplify its perceived proportions."
In a recent interview with the BBC, Rem Koolhaas (OMA) has spoken out against the campaign seeking to remove the United Kingdom from the European Union, upon which the British people will vote in a referendum next week. Reflecting on his time spent at London's Architectural Association (AA) in the 1960s and '70s, Koolhaas fears that advocates for withdrawal may be looking at the past through rose-colored glasses.
If you look at the arguments to leave you can see this is a movement of people who want to fundamentally change England back into the way it supposedly was before.
Five acclaimed international guests join OMA/AMO's Reinier de Graaf and the students of the Berlage Theory Master Class for a final debate on With the Masses - Architecture and Participation this Friday Night. Expect new insights into Het Nieuwe Insituut's collection and new formats for vigorous debate designed by the students. With a.o. Françoise Fromonot, architecture critic and educator, Ricardo E. Bofill, architect, and Lucien Kroll, Atelier Kroll.
Volume is an "agenda-setting" quarterly magazine, published by the Archis Foundation (The Netherlands). Founded in 2005 as a research mechanism by Ole Bouman (Archis), Rem Koolhaas (OMA*AMO), and Mark Wigley (Columbia University Laboratory for Architecture/C-Lab), the project "reaches out for global views on designing environments, advocates broader attitudes to social structures, and reclaims the cultural and political significance of architecture."
Over the next six weeks Volume will share a curated selection of essays from The System* on ArchDaily. This represents the start of a new partnership between two platforms with global agendas: in the case of ArchDaily to provide inspiration, knowledge and tools to architects across the world and, in the case of Volume, "to voice architecture any way, anywhere, anytime [by] represent[ing] the expansion of architectural territories and the new mandate for design."
https://www.archdaily.com/784350/introducing-volume-number-47-the-system-starAD Editorial Team
AMO has released the 16th edition of PradaReal Fantasies - a conceptual reinterpretation of the 2016 Spring/Summer Prada collection.
"AMO graphically reinterprets the Indefinite Hangar as a synthetic sunset fixed within a 3 dimensional blank space. The abstract hangar is populated with geometric objects and furniture. Characters move through a neutral scene between the undefined and distilled fragments of daily life. The horizon and scale constantly shifts, manipulating the frame and disrupting a linear sequence: an artificial landscape where fiction and collection collide," says the OMA research studio.
When it comes to the modern-day fashion show, the internet has fundamentally changed the way audiences interact with models and designers, say OMA/AMO, arguing: "The assemblage of recorded impressions and digital reactions inserts itself into the once autonomous narrative of the fashion show. The statement of the collective spreads. The mass of fragmented instant data is uploaded and critiqued by a multitude of voices."
With their latest fashion show design for Prada, which was used to showcase the designer's upcoming fall/winter menswear collection in Milan yesterday, the firm sought to enhance this sense of public judgement. "This consumption of images is like a public trial, a contemporary transposition of the Auto-da-fé," explains their press release, referring to the ceremonies of public penance which took place in the Portuguese and Spanish Inquisitions in the 15th-17th centuries.
