More Than Meets The Eye

MANILA, Philippines - He revolutionizes city landscapes with distinctive and cutting-edge buildings such as the angular loop-shaped CCTV headquarters in Beijing and the iconic Seattle Central Library. Named as one of The World’s Most Influential People by Time Magazine, award-winning architect Rem Koolhaas is with CNN’s TALK ASIA this week to show host Anjali Rao his latest creation, “The Prada Transformer” in Seoul.

“Prada is extremely director in terms of communicating what they like and what they don’t like. That is actually extremely pleasant because it clarifies very easily what you can do and what you need to do,” the architect shares on the program about his decade-long experience with the Italian fashion House.

Amid the current economic situation, even the star architect admits that he, too, is feeling the recession impact on big projects he was expected to begin. “Definitely, there were a number of projects that we worked on put on hold, but on the other hand certain things were also accelerated because the price of construction is getting so cheap,” Koolhaas shares. Still, he remains optimistic on what it may mean for his profession: “Because it means kind of smaller, but more complex and kind of interesting things, kind of related to, not necessarily with commerce, but more connected to culture and to the social world.”

Despite his worldwide fame and celebrity status, Koolhaas still feels a sense of unease being labeled a “starchitect”. “I think it’s a name that is actually degrading to the vast majority of people it is applied to. And it really is a kind of political term that for certain clients is important because they use starchitects. My hope is that through the current complexity that the title will exit discretely and disappear.”

The Dutch artist also addressed the accusation of being contradictory: “It is not possible to live in this age if you don’t have a sense of many contradictory forces.” He believes that architecture is one of few professions being pulled apart by different demands. “Each building has to be beautiful but cheap and fast, but it lasts forever. That is already an incredible battery of seemingly contradictory demands. So, yes, I’m definitely perhaps a contradictory person, but I operate in very contradictory times.”

For more on Rem Koolhaas’ interview with TALK ASIA, visit www.cnn.com/talkasia.