Agency Quote by Rem Koolhaas

That has been another interesting discovery: that basically a city [Lagos] could recover from a really deep, deep, deep pit.

— Rem Koolhaas

Manhattan has generated a shameless architecture that has been loved in direct proportion to its defiant lack of self-hatred, has been respected exactly to…

— Rem Koolhaas

In a script, you have to link various episodes together, you have to generate suspense and you have to assemble things - through editing,…

— Rem Koolhaas

The beauty of my profession [architecture] lies in its randomness and surprise. And don't think I can choose my projects. I have to build…

— Rem Koolhaas

Our office acts like a kind of educational establishment and we are very careful who we educate.

— Rem Koolhaas

We discovered a person in Lagos who had a fish stall, and within a single square metre she carried two children all the way…

— Rem Koolhaas

Nigeria [in 1990] was all rumour, an unbelievable amount of rumour - largely about crime and almost mythical manifestations of evil.

— Rem Koolhaas

Let's put it this way: One can be happy or unhappy in a building. But some buildings make us more depressed than others.

— Rem Koolhaas

Nigeria was a blank on the map - there weren't even any maps. The US State Department, everyone said don't go there. It was…

— Rem Koolhaas

The City is an addictive machine from which there is no escape

— Rem Koolhaas

The work in S, M, L, XL was almost suicidal. It required so much effort that our office almost went bankrupt.

— Rem Koolhaas

Manhattan has no choice but the skyward extrusion of the Grid itself; only the Skyscraper offers business the wide-open spaces of a man-made Wild…

— Rem Koolhaas