OMA are a giddy favourite of mine. Koolhaas' bluer-sky think-tank produces some examples of exceptional research work and fascinating and beautiful alternate architectural ideas. Recently everyone was a little let down after THAT fashion campaign so I was excited to see that they'd abandoned attempts at cutting edge montage visuals for an examination of classic European post-war public buildings.
Putting aside the ham-fisted graffiti wall coverings, meant to evoke a feeling of loss at the desecration of the holy buildings presented the exhibition was quite stunning. 15 buildings were selected with choicest plans and photographs to demonstrate that unique era when civil servants designed buildings to suit function over form which in itself is celebrated now as the form.
Robert Burghardt's work at the Arsenale is another, different memorial to the same breed of building making. His proposal for a Monument to Modernism draws on various tropes of these public works buildings - outside staircases and ramp, raised ground floors, and that odd modular design that seems to draw inspiration more from a careful arrangement of stationary and books than from practicality. His work is equally as admiring as OMA's but looks to an impossible future instead of a databasing of the past.
