Hasta La Ideas

Staying in London for a few more minutes (ah the rain and the expense of it all), the Architectural Association School there is preparing to mount an interesting exhibition called “OMA Book Machine: The Books of OMA” which will show off the entire collection of books and other publications by Rem Koolhaas and his firm, Office for Metropolitan Architecture (much, much more than what’s currently listed on their site). The show will include more than 40,000 pages pulled from OMA’s archives, offering up likely the most complete Koolhaas retrospective ever (albeit in book form). Here’s a quick description of some of what will be on display:

Many OMA books – like S,M,L,XL (1995) and Exodus or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture (made by the founders of OMA in 1975, and submitted by Koolhaas as his fifth-year thesis at the AA) — have had a decisive impact on architectural practice and book publishing in general. Others, like MoMA Charrette, made for the (lost) competition to expand New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1997, have remained hidden in the OMA archive. By compiling and presenting the depth and relentlessness of OMA’s dedication to the making of books as a still-revolutionary architectural form, OMA Book Machine reveals how central books remain to architecture today.

The show was set to open at the school tomorrow, May 7th, but according to their site, was “postponed due to transport disruption.” We think that means it was set to open earlier, but then there was that whole volcano travel ban and it will still be opening on Friday, but even if you aren’t there opening night, whenever it happens to be, the exhibition runs until June 4th, so you have some time.

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