Inventory of Problems: The Genesis of the Rotterdam Kunsthal by OMA/Rem Koolhaas, 1987-1992

The Kunsthal in Rotterdam is a key work in the oeuvre of OMA/Rem Koolhaas that marks the threshold between the firm’s architectural production of the decades before and after 1990. This doctoral thesis aims at a deeper and comprehensive understanding of this work of architecture. It gives a chronological account of the entire process of planning and design from the origins of the commission in 1987 to the completion of the building in 1992. The process is being discussed in a series of pertinent contexts, such as the site and its history, the architecture and the theory of the late 1980s, and contemporaneous political events like the Fall of the Iron Curtain and the dynamics of European Integration so as to reconstruct the historical moment the Kunsthal emerged from. The thesis combines archival research on the Kunsthal and the two closely connected projects of the Museum Park (1987-94) and the competition for the Netherlands Architecture Institute (1988) with text based research on a series of related fields: next to the literature on the production of OMA/Rem Koolhaas and the publications by Koolhaas himself, selected literature on the project’s historical backdrop and its above mentioned aspects.

Major attention is being dedicated to the relation between Koolhaas’ writings and statements, OMA’s architectural production and its reception. In the field of architectural history, both scholarly research and in-depth studies on OMA’s architecture are scarce to this day, while its reception is partly overshadowed by Koolhaas’ own exegesis. Both the focus on a single building and a methodological distinction between primary and secondary sources are to counteract these tendencies. The study of the primary sources – archival material, the existing building – follows the principle of an immanent reading, in order to re-enact the logic of the project and its development as well as how it ‘reflects’ the requirements, conflicts, intentions and historical events that conditioned it. The study of the secondary sources – literature on/by OMA, interviews with former team members – compares the logic of the project and its ‘reflectivity’ to the theoretical discourse and interpretations of the Kunsthal put forward by Koolhaas himself, critics, academics and others.

The account is divided in two parts. Part 1 draws a line from the origins of the commission to the first project of the Kunsthal (I) which was abandoned in autumn 1988. Focal themes are: the situation of OMA in 1987; Rotterdam and the history of the site; contemporary movements of urban renewal and Koolhaas’ take on urbanism at the time; the brief and the museum architecture of the 1980s; the Museum Park from the first studies to the final project by Yves Brunier; OMA’s competition entry for the Netherlands Architecture Institute, and the MoMA exhibition Deconstructivist Architecture in 1988. Part 2 is focused on the second project of the Kunsthal (II) which was eventually built. Next to the inception of the scheme and the completed building, several stages of the design are being discussed in detail. Other focal themes are: the concept of the circuit and architectural precedents; the impact of Ove Arup and the client on the design; the revision of Koolhaas’ architectural approach from 1989 onwards and how it relates to the events of European Integration and the Fall of the Berlin Wall; fragmentation as an issue that is key both to this shift and the Kunsthal in terms of design.