Any architectural project we do takes at least four or five years, so increasingly there is a discrepancy between the acceleration of culture and the continuing slowness of architecture.
Rem Koolhaas

If you have this reputation you can sit back and endure it, or you can try to do things with it.
Rem Koolhaas

Influence is a very unpleasant subject and I deal with it in a maybe irresponsible way, which is to really ignore it. It would be a nightmare if we started to really think about it; it would tie our hands, it would tie everyone else's hands.
Rem Koolhaas

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

The luxury of our position now is that we can almost assemble any team to address any issue.
Rem Koolhaas

I think one of the important evolutions is that we no longer feel compulsively the need to argue, or to justify things on a kind of rational level. We are much more willing to admit that certain things are completely instinctive and others are really intellectual.
Rem Koolhaas

It's a weird city because the uglier the weather, the more beautiful the city. And the uglier the buildings, the more coherent the city.
Rem Koolhaas