Review Of Koolhaas' Seattle Library

"if you wanted to build a new library downtown somewhere, Rem Koolhaas is probably the last architect you would think to hire. For years, Koolhaas has been ranting about how traditional cities don’t matter anymore, and how the rise of new technologies has made public space obsolete, and how when people leave their houses the only thing they want to do is shop. His firm, the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, which is based in Rotterdam, wasn’t on the original list of architects being considered for a new library in Seattle, but one day in 1999 Koolhaas’s partner, Joshua Ramus, who comes from Seattle, got a phone call from his mother saying she had read in the local newspaper that any architect who wanted to be considered should show up the next day for a briefing. Ramus rushed to the airport, flew to Seattle, and eventually the firm got the job."