This is a building of extraordinary quality in its construction, and despite its asteroidal form, one that defers to its urban context, with a generous attitude about the potential for the spaces around the building. But its materiality and strange decorum subvert the regular OMA rulebook. It is close to the Dutch embassy in Berlin in the sense that it creates an episodic route around the building that is not defined by given floor plates. Casa da musica oma skin#The building seems formally reminiscent of Seattle Library in the way that its skin unites a series of given volumes. “Our office has an undeserved reputation for not being interested in context,” says Koolhaas. The skill of Portuguese masons and concrete specialists, along with the relatively coherent urban situation, have produced a building of great conviction, and one that is difficult to place in the context of Koolhaas’ work. The context of Portugal, Porto and the Rotunda seems to have been liberating. This became the Casa de Musica – a house for music. When the client pulled out of the project, Koolhaas decided that the form (called a “polyhedron” in the press material) would work far better scaled up five times and recast as a concert hall. Koolhaas and Arup engineer Cecil Balmond had been working on a project for a private house in the Netherlands. The form of the project had nothing to do with this context, though. The plaza and the long avenue it sits on are the most characteristic features of the 19th-century urban planning that dominates Porto outside of its medieval city centre. Koolhaas was faced for the first time in his career with a project that formed part of a highly classical piece of urbanism – the Rotunda da Boavista – a large circular plaza that contains a monument built to commemorate the Peninsular War with Napoleon (1808-14). OMA and Arup won the competition for a new concert hall in Porto 1999 from a shortlist of six international practices. The faded grandeur of Porto and its picturesque topography would seem a little conventional for the Dutch mandarin. Think of the busy, elevated road outside the Rotterdam Kunsthal or the knot of railway networks near Lille. Even his buildings in European cities have mediated areas of post-industrial landscape more than they have dealt with coherent historic parts. Whether that be the shapeless CBD of a city like Seattle, the non-places of retail malls or the overpowering slums of Lagos in Nigeria. Koolhaas’ interest is more usually piqued by the cities and contexts that transcend the architectural. They are building critically acclaimed buildings all over the country, and have nurtured an architectural culture in Portugal that should be the envy of most of the rest of the world. And it has two of the greatest living architects – Alvaro Siza and Eduardo Souta de Moura – sharing an office in Porto, its second city. It reputedly produces more architects per head of population than any other country in the world. Portugal doesn’t really need Rem Koolhaas.
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