by ArchitectureWeek

Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas has received the prestigious 2003 Praemium Imperiale Architecture Award. He is one of five honored this year by the Japan Art Association. These awards recognize lifetime achievement in the arts in categories not covered by the Nobel Prizes. Koolhaas was also the recipient of the 2000 Pritzker Prize.

In making the award, the Japan Art Association referred to Koolhaas as "....an artist in the vanguard of architectural practice [who] breaks all the rules of function and structure, and virtually invents a new architecture. His innovative buildings examine and revise conventional expression and are marked by surprising, yet pragmatic, solutions."

This novelty can be seen in his built works ranging from single-family houses to large-scale urban planning. It is also evident in his teaching and writings, such as Great Leap Forward, a book about Chinese urbanism published with his architecture students at Harvard University.

Koolhaas was born in 1944 in Rotterdam, spent some of his childhood in Indonesia, and was educated at the Architectural Association in London. He is now principal of the Rotterdam-based Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), which he founded in 1975.   >>>

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The "Educatorium" at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, by Rem Koolhaas, winner of this year's Praemium Imperiale. Photo: © The Sankei Shimbun/ The Japan Art Association Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. Photo: © The Sankei Shimbun/ The Japan Art Association   Click on thumbnail images to view full-size pictures.