Perhaps no one is better situated to forge a behind-the-scenes look at Rem Koolhaas than his son, Filmed, produced, directed and edited by the 36-year-old, Tomas Koolhaas. The LA-based filmmaker just wrapped up 'REM', a documentary about his father as he travels the world and reflects on his work.
After five years, all started at the end 2011 (first clip was edited from footage Tomas Koolhaas shooted in Feb 2012), and after a process of crowdfunded by a Kickstarter, the film 'REM', (on Rem Koolhaas) will officially premiere at the Venice Film Festival this September.

'Architecture is often viewed from the outside, as an inanimate object represented in still imagery', with this sentence begins Tomas Koolhaas explaining the documentary he has been realizing since already three years around the figure of his father, Rem Koolhaas.

It is obvious comparison with previous proposals, as the great movie about Bordeaux house, "Koolhaas Houselife" (2007) by Ila Beka and Louise Lemoine, where nobody knows what the house, but everyone finds the daily life and way of life their inhabitants, or films and documentaries about architects, now classic, made by their children, as the popular film by Nathanial KahnlLouis Kahn's son, "My Architect: A Son's Journey" (2003) or James Venturi with John Halpern on the work of their parents, Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, "Saving Lieb House" (2010).
 
'REM' will officially premiere at the Venice Film Festival this September. Trailers are below.
 

Pieced together from conversations on the road, Rem’s gravelly voiceover forms a continuous monologue. We are treated to his musings on everything from the nature of time to the joys of swimming, with each section introduced by a momentous title quote, like the sayings of the Buddha. The seductive camerawork shows Koolhaas in action in exotic locations, framed against near constant sunsets with a generous dose of lens flare and the warm glow of an Instagram filter. Most scenes are shot from behind, making the back of Rem’s head the star of the film – a product of necessity that turned into an fitting stylistic choice. “Rem doesn’t wait for you,” says Tomas Koolhaas. “I was literally running after him, then I realised it was an interesting viewpoint, a way of seeing what he’s seeing.”

It’s a choice that fits with the highly personal narrative, a catalogue of Rem’s anthropological observations on subjects including construction workers, the countryside, collaboration and celebrity. “Nothing is more revealing than seeing how other people move in or near the water,” says Koolhaas, over footage of him floating somewhere near a rocky coastline. “When I’ve swum,” which he makes a point of doing every day, no matter where he is, “I have a wonderful moment of emptiness and readiness.”

Oliver Wainwright The Guardian 11.08.2016

Architecture fans expecting insight into working methods, partly, will be disappointed

In METALOCUS we have brought different images on building by Rem Koolhaas, as for example CCTV building, including one of the best that made by José Manuel Ballester, now the film by the Rem Koolhaas' son. The shorts that we bring you presents a truer picture of the building. For example, facing the monumental image of CCTV, the film shows images of everyday life, people who have used so far, workers and vigilant, putting them in parallel with the small day-to-day buildings, small shops, the royal city, a reality that has been and is being crushed by the progress of the new China. The building is shown without forgetting its large scale, it being walked by Rem Koolhaas, showing the dimensions of the project face the city that lies at their feet, in a view from the roof.

The shorts, in this case, appear to be more. The photograph at least that seems to show us, we need to know the script and the full film. The key question four years ago and now are; is it a description of the figure of Rem Koolhaas?, will it be a description of your work?, Will it be both or neither? On Venice, the answers.

CREDITS.-

Director.- Tomas Koolhaas
Music.- Murray Hidary

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Tomas Koolhaas. Rem Koolhaas' son, was born in London. LA based Film maker. Currently working on feature length Documentary about my father Rem Koolhaas. Before moving to the United States, he worked in various of media related jobs in his home town. He worked as the assitand to the head of programming of MTV UK, then as a set builder, set designer and lighting assistant for TANK magazine. He also had illustrations published in a bestselling architectural book. Wanting to move into the cinematic side of media. Tomas decided to study film in Hollywood at the Los Angeles Film School. He graduated with a major in cinematography.
As a student Tomas was the director of photography an a multitude of short films and even shot his first feature while at L.A.F.S. These projects not only brought acclaim from within the school, but they were also selected for and received awards at various film festivals.

Since Graduating Tomas has served as the Director of Photography on feature films, short films, music videos, commercials and documentaries, as well as directing a short on HD. These projects span all genres and formats. And due to their high standard, continue to gain recognition and receive awards from various festivals and institutions all over the world.

Tomas is expertly qualified on all popular shooting formats and various camera systems, he has developed a reputation for being able to use digital formats in a way that gets results usually only expected from film.

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Rem Koolhaas was born in Rotterdam in 1944. He began his career as a journalist, working for the Haagse Post, and as a set-designer in the Netherlands and Hollywood. He beganHe frequented the Architectural Association School in London and studied with Oswald Mathias Ungers at Cornell University. In 1978, he wrote Delirious New York: a retroactive manifesto for Manhattan, which has become a classic of contemporary architectural theory. In 1975 – together with Elia and Zoe Zenghelis and Madelon Vriesendorp – he founded OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture).

The most important works by Koolhaas and OMA, from its foundation until the mid-1990s, include the Netherlands Dance Theatre at The Hague, the Nexus Housing at Fukuoka in Japan, the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, the Grand Palais of Euralille and Lille, the Villa dall’Ava, the Très Grande Bibliothèque, the Jussieu library in Paris, the ZKM in Karlsruhe and the Seattle Public Library.

Together with Koolhaas’s reflections on contemporary society, these buildings appear in his second book, S,M,L,XL (1995), a volume of 1376 pages written as though it were a “novel about architecture”. Published in collaboration with the Canadian graphic designer, Bruce Mau, the book contains essays, manifestos, cartoons and travel diaries.

In 2005, with Mark Wigley and Ole Bouman, he was the founder to the prestigious Volume magazine, the result of a collaboration with Archis (Amsterdam), AMO and C-lab (Columbia University NY).

His built work includes the Qatar National Library and the Qatar Foundation Headquarters (2018), Fondation Galeries Lafayette in Paris (2018), Fondazione Prada in Milan (2015/2018), Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow (2015), the headquarters for China Central Television (CCTV) in Beijing (2012), Casa da Musica in Porto (2005), Seattle Central Library (2004), and the Netherlands Embassy in Berlin (2003). Current projects include the Taipei Performing Arts Centre, a new building for Axel Springer in Berlin, and the Factory in Manchester.

Koolhaas directed the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale and is a professor at Harvard University, where he directs The Project on the City, a research programme on changes in urban conditions around the world. This programme has conducted research on the delta of the Pearl River in China (entitled Great Leap Forward) and on consumer society (The Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping). Taschen Verlag has published the results. Now is preparing a major exhibition for the Guggenheim museum to open in 2019 entitled Countryside: Future of the World.

Among the awards he has won in recent years, we mention here the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize (2000), the Praemium Imperiale (2003), the Royal Gold Medal (2004) and the Mies Van Der Rohe prize (2005). In 2008, Time mentioned him among the 100 most influential people of the planet.

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Published on: August 20, 2016
Cite: "'REM' by Tomas Koolhaas will officially premiere this September" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/rem-tomas-koolhaas-will-officially-premiere-september> ISSN 1139-6415
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