文档介绍：CITY, VO L. 4, NO. 3, 2000
Debates
‘Bigness’ in context: some
regressive tendencies in Rem
Koolhaas’ urban theory
Jorge Otero-Pailos
em Koolhaas’ views on urbanism shaping the present. Moreover, old theories
Rhave been taken up as a ‘renewed of urbanism, in so far as they are the wrong
commitment to the American city’. tools for looking at the present, are repres-
However, read against the history of the sive veils keeping us from an authentic
American metropolis Koolhaas’ theories experience of the real. History, context, and
reveal their regressive implications. His specificity are all seen as concealing
claim in relation to his theory of ‘Bigness’ In calling for a fresh look at the real
of autonomy from the city at once con- Koolhaas appeals to models of 19th century
tinues the American tradition of inserting The reality, he claims, is that
non-urban spaces in urban contexts, and what we call cities today are really a series of
liquidates its ponent. In ‘city islands’ grafted onto the larger field of
arguing for an evaluation of Koolhaas’ the ‘un-city’. Koolhaas proposes the theory
contributions in the light of their sim- of Bigness as a response to the need to
ilarity to 19th century principles of urban develop new taxonomies and models that
planning, and of their indebtedness to will help us understand and operate in the
1960s attitudes towards the city and contemporary metropolis.
towards collectivity, I am going against the Koolhaas does not provide a systematic
grain of those who see in them a radical prehensive theory of urbanism,
departure from previous attitudes towards nor does he explicitly describe the research
the city. Far from opening the door to the methodology that led him to the conclu-
new, Koolhaas helps entrench the already. sions he draws from Bigness. This factor
Koolhaas speaks of urban planning as a accounts in part for his failure to influence
thing of the past. Since buildings have a