Koolhaas. Countryside, A Report

The rural, remote, and wild territories we call countryside , or the 98% of the earths surface not occupied by cities, make up the front line where Todays most powerful forces-climate and ecological devastation, migration, tech, demographic lurches-are playing out. Increasingly under a Cartesian regime-gridded, mechanized, and optimized for maximal production-these sites are changing beyond recognition. In his latest publication, Rem Koolhaas explores the rapid and often hidden transformations underway across the Earths vast non-urban areas. Countryside, A Report gathers travelogue essays exploring territories marked by global forces and experimentation at the edge of our consciousness: a test site near Fukushima, where the robots that will maintain Japans infrastructure and agriculture are tested; a greenhouse city in the Netherlands that may be the origin for the cosmology of Todays countryside; the rapidly thawing permafrost of Central Siberia, a region wrestling with the possibility of relocation; refugees populating dying villages in the German countryside and intersecting with climate change activists; habituated mountain gorillas confronting humans on their territory in Uganda; the American Midwest, where industrial-scale farming operations are coming to grips with regenerative agriculture; and Chinese villages transformed into all-in-one factory, e-commerce stores, and fulfillment centers. This book is the official companion to the Guggenheim Museum exhibition Countryside, the Future. the exhibition and book mark a new area of investigation for architect and urbanist Rem Koolhaas, who launched his career with two city-centric entities: the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (1975) and Delirious New York (1978). Its designed by Irma Boom, who drew inspiration…