OMA / Rem Koolhaas "Cronocaos"

The New Museum of Contemporary Art

poster for OMA / Rem Koolhaas "Cronocaos"

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“Cronocaos” is an exhibition about the increasingly urgent topic of preservation in architecture and urbanism by OMA / Rem Koolhaas and organized by the New Museum. First presented at the 2010 Venice Biennale, at the invitation of Kazuyo Sejima, Commissioner, “Cronocaos” takes place at the New Museum’s 3,600-square-foot, partially renovated, ground-floor space at 231 Bowery. It examines the growing “empire” of preservation and analyzes the consequences of these regimes for how we build, rebuild, and how we remember.

Twelve percent of the planet now falls under various systems of natural and cultural preservation. According to Koolhaas, heritage is becoming more and more the dominant metaphor for our lives today—a situation he calls “Cronocaos.” Koolhaas seeks to find what the future of our memory will look like, and how our obsession with heritage is creating an artificial re-engineered version of our memory. Lacking a set of coherent strategies or policies and generally not engaged by architects and designers, preservation is an under-examined topic, but increasingly relevant as we enter an age of “Cronocaos,” in which the boundaries between preservation, construction, and demolition collapse, forever changing the course of linear evolution of time.

“Cronocaos” includes historic objects and photographs; analysis of the rapid growth of preserved urban and natural territories; and a timeline of OMA projects that have confronted the issue of preservation over thirty-five years of practice, including the 2001 proposed extension to the Whitney Museum of American Art and the curatorial master plan for The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. Each project within the OMA timeline will take the form of a postcard for visitors to peel off the wall and take home. By the end of the exhibition, preservation and depletion will be evident in the exhibition itself. Reflecting the exhibition’s themes, the former restaurant-supply space will be visually transformed into two very different areas: one side will remain “preserved” as it was while inhabited by the restaurant supply store; the other will be minimally renovated.

Visitors may purchase tickets to see “Cronocaos” at the Visitor Services desk at the New Museum, at 235 Bowery.

About OMA
OMA is a leading partnership practicing architecture, urbanism, and cultural analysis. OMA is led by seven partners–Rem Koolhaas, Ellen van Loon, Reinier de Graaf, Shohei Shigematsu, Iyad Alsaka, David Gianotten, and Managing Partner Victor van der Chijs–and sustains an international practice with offices in Rotterdam, New York, Beijing, and Hong Kong. The counterpart to OMA’s architectural practice is AMO, a design and research studio based in the company's Rotterdam office. While OMA remains dedicated to the realization of buildings and master plans, AMO operates in areas beyond the traditional boundaries of architecture, including media, politics, sociology, renewable energy, technology, fashion, curating, publishing, and graphic design.

OMA’s recently completed projects include the Wyly Theatre in Dallas (with REX, 2010); Prada Transformer, a rotating multi-use pavilion in Seoul (2009); the Casa da Música concert hall in Porto (2005); the Prada Epicenter in Los Angeles (2004); the Seattle Central Library (2004); the Netherlands Embassy in Berlin (2003); the IIT Campus Center in Chicago (2003); and the Prada Epicenter in New York (2001). OMA-designed buildings currently under construction include the new headquarters for China Central Television—a tower reinvented as a loop—in Beijing; the adjacent Television Cultural Centre; Shenzhen Stock Exchange, China’s equivalent of the NASDAQ exchange for hi-tech industries; a new headquarters for Rothschild Bank in London; and De Rotterdam, the largest building in the Netherlands.

Responsible for projects in the Americas, OMA’s New York office is currently overseeing the design for the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec in Canada and the construction of Milstein Hall, an extension to the College of Architecture, Art and Planning at Cornell University, scheduled for completion during the fall of this year.

Media

Schedule

from May 07, 2011 to June 05, 2011

Artist(s)

OMA, Rem Koolhaas

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