OMA NY Monograph by Studio Lin — BP&O
Text by Richard Baird
The Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) is an international architecture office that operates within the traditional boundaries of architecture and urban planning. It was founded in Rotterdam in 1975 by the architects Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis as well as by Madelon Vriesendorp and Zoe Zenghelis. OMA now has seven offices. This year, the OMA New York monograph, self-published by Studio Lin, was published, which looks back on over 10 years of their work.
Studio Lin's cover for OMA NY is deceptive. Its cool gray, the application of a clear printed surface and the contrast it has with the underlying fabric, as well as the composition of the index follow an architectural logic, it creates a presence through weight and volume, light, shadow and texture. It's beautifully realized and precise. However, it gains more from the dialogue it has with its content and more from its internal logic and layout.
Slim margins, single-column grid, pasted text, and a slightly larger than expected point size emphasize the space on the page. This opening functions as a border area, as a transition from outside to inside. This is followed by a photo of an interior of OMA NY.
Inside, the book offers a remarkable insight into ten years of architectural practice. This contains over 5,500 images. Each project is presented in great detail with existing PowerPoint presentations that are used to create a structure. Additional pictures, diagrams and sketches fill the space on the page. Where we expect austerity and a minimalist aesthetic, the careful arrangement of a picture or two in an abundance of white spaces, here there is an urge around the space, a willingness to fill the page with all forms of experimentation, technical insight and Renderings. It's solemn and intriguing, and each side demands that it be examined for details rather than external fetishization. In this way, it has a visual language of diligence and hyperactivity of thought. There's an agency and immediacy in not just the arrangement, but in the studio's ability not to mediate or moderate in order to present work as it was presented to clients. Conceptually it is robust, lends further credibility and internationality when it is contained in the cool formalized logic of the cover. At the end, you get an interesting physical metaphor of a precisely realized structure (in the cover of the book) and the extreme production required to reach the level of refinement. Captions become narrative in the context of the book.
There are moments of calm. These moments, which serve to moderate the rhythm of the monograph and set the pace. A complete page distribution of a plan drawing, a complete cropping image or a block of text are given additional weight in the document when the hectic pace is interrupted. It's a remarkable layout job. There is no formal grid, and each page has its own arrangement of images and text. This underlines once again the formalized arrangement of the writing on the outside and promotes its meaning in the dialogue between the two. After seeing many monographs from architectural firms sighing over and over again at the same kind of aesthetic and logic, this is a delightful relief. Further work by Studio Lin on BP & O.
Design: Studio Lin. Opinion: Richard Baird. Fonts: TBC.
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