Bruce Mau Libros

S,M,L,XL presents a selection of the remarkable visionary design work produced by the Dutch firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture (O.M.A.) and its acclaimed founder, Rem Koolhaas, in its first twenty years, along with a variety of insightful, often poetic writings. The inventive collaboration between Koolhaas and designer Bruce Mau is a graphic overture that weaves together architectural projects, photos and sketches, diary excerpts, personal travelogues, fairy tales, and fables, as well as critical essays on contemporary architecture and society. The book's title is also its framework: projects and essays are arranged according to scale. While Small and Medium address issues ranging from the domestic to the public, Large focuses on what Koolhaas calls "the architecture of Bigness." Extra-Large features projects at the urban scale, along with the important essay "What Ever Happened to Urbanism?" and other studies of the contemporary city. Running throughout the book is a "dictionary" of an adventurous new Koolhaasian language -- definitions, commentaries, and quotes from hundreds of literary, cultural, artistic, and architectural sources.

A multitude of articles - written by academics mostly centered around the industrial-design scene in the Netherlands - attempting definitions, describing challenges, opportunities and listing the tools, methodologies of the emerging field of Open Design. There is no consensus, especially in trying to define the field (what's included, what's not), and there is partially too much overlap in some of the articles (yes, the consumer turns into a pro-sumer, i get it now) but all in all the book, with its articles and additional short portraits, gives a great overview of the field (era 2011). Joost Smiers thought experiment stood out to me, where he theorizes that a complete abolishment of copyright laws would lead to a negative-feedback controlled market that wouldn't allow any blockbusters, any bestsellers to emerge and therefore even out the market to a more localized, fair system that would feed all artists and designers equally. One of the aspiring characteristics of Open Design - whether intentionally or not - is that it makes end-users (pro-sumers) assume more responsibility for their products/goods. And as we are facing scarcity of resources and nevertheless dispose of 50% of products within 3 months of buying (stats?), the books leaves one with the hope that the Open Design movement and all its cousins (Hacking, Recycling, Repairing, Sharing culture ..) might grip and help solve these problems.