Whats a world-famous architect to do?
Collect his Pritzker Prize, complete his seminal Seattle library – and leap to conquer the virtual realm. By Gary Wolf Rem Koolhaas is as tall and gaunt as a saint in an altarpiece, and he has a taste for edifying pain. The Dutch architect, whose megastructures in Europe and Asia and other audacious plans earned him this year’s Pritzker Prize, is also his profession’s most ruthless and excoriating critic. Recently, Koolhaas indulged his cruel streak by telling an audience of students and architects at UC Berkeley some unpleasant truths about contemporary building practices. He arrived at the old lecture hall to find the room overflowing; his fans squeezed three wide on the stairs, and dozens more strained their ears outside. After a pious introduction by a member of the faculty, who called Koolhaas the new Corbusier, he began a presentation notable for its humble style – some of his slides simply showed his hands holding a book open to a chart or illustration – and its unforgiving tone
