Rem Koolhaas

In nature, the most successfully surviving specimen is not necessarily the strongest or the most intelligent, but the one that is most capable of adapting to its environmental niche. Probably this could be an explanation for some intellectuals’ success in cultural and public life, or influence and legacy. Explaining the profile of the architect, planner and thinker Rem Koolhaas in these bare terms would surely be reductive. Nonetheless, one can say that adaptive realism is one of Koolhaas’s peculiar characteristics that allowed him to dominate the architectural and urban design debate for decades and to leverage diverse geopolitical conditions to his benefit, both as an intellectual and as a practitioner. This chapter critically presents his work and the contribution to the fields or architecture, urban planning and urbna studies.