The Rem Koolhaas File

Noriko Takiguchi, The Rem Koolhaas File (Kōdō shugi), TOTO Publishing, 2004

A Japanese journalist's close account of Rem Koolhaas at work.

Noriko Takiguchi writes about technology, business, architecture and design, and works between Silicon Valley and Japan. For this book she followed Koolhaas, watching, listening, photographing and talking with him. Her conclusion, as the publisher puts it: his output rests on an unusually hard driving way of working.

After a prologue and a documentary section come interviews with eleven people who work alongside him: the engineer Cecil Balmond, the curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, Michael Rock of 2x4, the critic Sanford Kwinter, Jeffrey Inaba of AMO, the model maker Vincent de Rijk, Petra Blaisse, Toyo Ito, Chris Anderson of Wired, Mark Leonard and Paul Nakazawa. Then comes an interview with Koolhaas himself.

Toyo Ito recommended the book. Masayoshi Kodaira of FLAME designed it as a small paperback.

The text is in Japanese. The names are not.

Softcover, 440 pages, 12.8 by 18.8 cm. Japanese text. Available online and in our shop at Vester Voldgade 106, Copenhagen.