Le Corbusier Is probably the “Conscious Inspiration” Father, but without doubt, Rem Koolhaas is the Contemporary Inspiration Source for leading architects

From Eliinbar’s Sketchbook 2014- Rem Koolhaas and SANAA Typology of a Shifted Buildings

After a long break, I’m back.. Business as usual .. Nothing new under the sun.

Today’s post will be the first of a series, inquiring whether one of the leading architectural firms in the world, office of Architecture OMA led by Rem Koolhaas, is a popular Inspiration Sources among leading architects today.

Each post will introduce a building designed by Rem Koolhaas . I will identify the building main configuration, and its origins. Then I will unfold some buildings, we can identify characteristics indicating they were influenced by Rem Koolhaas .

In other words, Rem Koolhaas’s buildings, most likely were their Inspiration Source

The Inspiration Source

This is the new De Rotterdam complex a “vertical city” in Rotterdam completed in 2013

Commission 1997, groundbreaking December 2009, completion November 2013

Rem Koolhaas’s quote published in DEZEEN :

“a building that consists of separate volumes that were slightly shifted vis-a-vis each other“

The main configuration

Here is a sketch I made, that explains the principles of the typology of a Shifted Buildings

The origins

And this building is Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Falling Water” built in the USA in 1934 . this building is probably one of the known examples of Shifted Buildings.

Frank Lloyd Wright- “Falling Water”

Plans, sections and elevations

Note that the principle of shifting is expressed in plans, sections and elevations

Conscious Inspiration today

This is a Museum built lately in NewYork City,designed by Tokyo-based architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa.

Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa are partners in the Japanese architectural firm SANAA.

SANAA has won the 2010 Pritzker Architecture Prize, the profession’s highest honor.

SANAA received the commission of this Museum in 2002 and completion was in 2007

SANAA‘s Museum is a multi purpose buildings with an ambitious program a dramatic stack of seven rectangular boxes.

The following video explains well the museum main configuration

Of shifted boxes.

What do the architects have to say?

This is how Rem koolhaas describes the main configuration of the De Rotterdam complex: “a building that consists of separate volumes that were slightly shifted vis-a-vis each other“

From: DEZEEN

And this is SANAA’s description for the museum in New York: “We knew we could not maximize the entire site with solid architecture, we had to reduce the building’s mass somehow to create space between it and the perimeter. The solution of the shifted boxes arrived quickly”.

From New Building Museume

Notice that Rem Koolhaas and SANAA are using the same basic notions to describe their buildings: “shifted volumes / boxes“.

From Eliinbar’s Sketchbook 2014- Rem Koolhaas and SANAA Typology of a Shifted Buildings