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REM KOOLHAAS
Life in the Metropolis
In addition, in the text, he
mentions about elevators a lot
and in 1909, The first elevator
was founded by Otis and he
showed people how to use it.
Therefore, the first theorem
came up about the initial
skyscraper idea. Industrialization
played a big role to let the
people build the taller buildings.
Theodore came up with the first
idea of mixed-use buildings with
different functions up to 100
storeys.
They
seem
it
as
the
accumulation of the privacies. It
is said that the idea of
recreation
evolved
with
skyscraper
and
everyone
became to have a chance to buy
his/her privacy; they were
feeling safe only in residential
parts, but in this way they can
feel secure also in public areas
as we also understand from the
case of Downtown Athletic Club.
__________________________
Koolhaas, Rem. ‘’Life in the
Metropolis’’ or ‘The Culture of
Congestion’’, pp. 320-331, in K.
Michael Hays (ed.) Architecture
Theory Since 1968 (Cambridge
Mass: The MIT Press, 1998)
However, skyscrapers create
paradoxes. When you build a
skyscraper, you feel closer to the
sun and sky, however, you are
getting far away from the
ground.
Therefore,
place
attachment is getting hard in an
urban condition and the
neighbor relationships change;
you become isolated from your
environment.
The other discussion was about
Radio City Music Hall and he
gives it as an example to these
results
of
evolution
of
metropolitan lives. In Radio City
Music Hall, the external look
contrasts with the interior
condition. They try to make
people perceive the artificial
sunset; they simulate the natural
environment. They also use
laughing gases to dominate also
the senses of the audience.
At the end, Rem Koolhaas
suggests
a
metaphorical
planning called as Uncity like a
plug-in city which is consisted of
different layers of urban ecology.
There are again blocks which
was thrown up with the grid
system of modernism showing
the pieces from different
architects together. There is also
a metaphorical conception of
caption of the globe in the
middle; “The City of The Captive
Globe”.
BEYOND ARCHITECTURE | SUMMER 2015 | ISSUE 1