S M L XL: Second Edition | 
| Authors: Rem Koolhaas, Bruce Mau, Hans Werlemann
Publisher: Monacelli Press
Category: Book
List Price: $85.00
Buy Used: $46.95
You Save: $38.05 (45%)
New (21) Used (23) Collectible (2) from $46.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  25 reviews
Sales Rank: 20890
Media: Hardcover
Edition: Subsequent
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 1376
Shipping Weight (lbs): 6
Dimensions (in): 9.5 x 7.6 x 2.7
ISBN: 1885254865
Dewey Decimal Number: 720.9
EAN: 9781885254863
ASIN: 1885254865
Publication Date: October 1, 1997
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Crisp, clean and unread hardcover with light shelfwear to the boards- VERY NICE!
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
This extraordinary, massive, and mind-boggling 1,300-page book combines essays, manifestos, diaries, fairy tales, travelogues, a cycle of meditations on the contemporary city--and complex illustration--with work produced by Koolhaas' Office for Metropolitan Architecture over the past twenty years. This almost overwhelming accumulation of words and images illuminates the condition of architecture today--its splendors and miseries--exploring and revealing the corrosive effects of politics, context, the economy, and globalization. In some ways, this is the "Medium is the Message" of 1990s architectural discourse: guaranteed to be hugely influential in the coming decades, but grossly misunderstood by those who have not read it. The core arguments it makes about metropolitan architecture--accepting complexity and lack of centralized control--are similar to those of Kevin Kelly's Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World. Very highly recommended.
Product Description
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 20 more reviews...
 Browse someone else's copy June 29, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
An acquaintance had a copy of this so I looked through it during a dinner party. Blah. Bah! It's full of facetious, egotistical monoliths (from the edifices to the book itself) that offer nothing but themselves to the rest of the urban experience. Le Corbusier of the late 20th century. Gawd, I hope Koolhaas doesn't take that as a compliment.
Uma boa aquisicao! May 8, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Realmente atendeu as expectativas. Um belissimo livro em um bom preco e no prazo de entrega informado.
 thick and dry January 27, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
So much information that it took too long to get through it before most of it wasn't relevant any longer.
Extra Medium... November 13, 2004
71 out of 93 found this review helpful
There's a terrific line in Breakfast at Tiffany's. George Peppard proudly hands neighbor Audrey Hepburn a copy of his just-published book. She has no idea what to do with it, so she puts it on a shelf next to a vase, backs away and says "Doesn't that look nice?"
This book is a lot like that. A self-conciously designed object for the homes of style consumers who already have the right clothes and the B&B Italia furniture. A prop for the still-life they want to inhabit. If they ever got around to "reading" it, they'd discover to their great relief... it's NOT a book to be read in any strict classical sense.
It also reminds me of a New Yorker cartoon where one associate asks another, "Read the first few pages of any good books lately?" The age of the short attention span is not going away any time soon. This hefty grey slab is easily recast as the shiny new headstone for verbalized intelligence.
As Kracauer holds it, there's nothing wrong with framing a culture via fragments, but I have plenty of qualms about advancing one's own ideas that way. And I'm suspect of ideas that trowel on style in the abundance seen here. If I could believe Bruce Mau's intentions were more than just trying to look new, (This 'look' now permeates architecture publications) I'd have more respect for this, but it was obviously calculated as a totem of style and style-suffusion.
For better or for worse, the book got noticed, the industry was distracted by the pretty surfaces and the ascent of Koolhaas is a done deal.
If you want to actually READ a book full of Koolhaas' thoughts, skip this and get a copy of Delirious New York.
S,M,L,XL September 18, 2003
6 out of 29 found this review helpful
Possibly one of the many great books on architecture of today with plenty of references and clean graphics. A must have for all architecs or if you just want a wonderfully beautiful book for your home or office.
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