Rating: 
Summary: S,M,L,XL
Review: Quite simply, the Bible of architecture.
Rating:
Summary: Even within chaos, the mind can envision patterns
Review: Rem Koolhaas has invented a set of theories in S,M,L,XL that transcends and show progression from his earlier work, Delirious New York. What a glory it is for a man of his vision and talent to spend the time in documenting his works. For one man to maintain his practice as an architect and planner, and also produce this epic anti-coffee table book with such vigor is indispensable. The novel's greatest asset is in the way it moves the architect from the coffee table or decorative bookcase, to the mind. Koolhaas is a genius, and I congratulate him as being the recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize.
Rating:
Summary: Even within chaos, the mind can envision patterns
Review: Rem Koolhaas has invented a set of theories in S,M,L,XL that transcends and show progression from his earlier work, Delirious New York. What a glory it is for a man of his vision and talent to spend the time in documenting his works. For one man to maintain his practice as an architect and planner, and also produce this epic anti-coffee table book with such vigor is indispensable. The novel's greatest asset is in the way it moves the architect from the coffee table or decorative bookcase, to the mind. Koolhaas is a genius, and I congratulate him as being the recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Big Mega-Mega
Review: S, M, L, XL, love it or hate it, is seminal; Rem Koolhaas is one of the most important cultural figures on the planet at this time. S, M, L, XL serves as memoir, manifesto, documentation, diagnosis, prognosis, prophecy, plan, agenda, & propoganda -- local and/or global historicocriticophilosophical montage, collage, and barrage. The book is beautiful. Bruce Mau has indeed "given form" to the silver juggernaut. The cover, the illustrations, typographies, photos, and text come together in the manner of a Tristam Shandy or Finnegan's Wake. S, M, L, XL as literature is a commentary on the condition we call "modernity". Koolhaas seeks an understanding of both his profession and the chaotic dynamics of the world his profession leaves structures in. Koolhaas is at home in the chaos, and like Pynchon in fiction, or Antonioni in film, is remarkably detached and involved in the process at the same time(maybe this is false, but Koolhaas as a writer and architect is an auteur possessed by genius, and S, M, L, XL is both comforting and uncanny at the same time). S,M,L,XL is proof that Koolhaas is aware of the increasingly global nature of the architect's profession. I am fascinated by the concept and practice of traveling, and activity Koolhaas knows all too well as a traveler in the discourse and practice of "modernity". Essays within S,M,L,XL such as "Islam After Einstein" and "Singapore Songlines:Thirty Years of Tabula Rasa" show his knowledge of the increasingly important relation between the East and West, and the implications involved. Perhaps the most brilliant essay/manifesto in the book is one of the most recently written, "The Generic City" which questions notions of progress in history and the archeology(ies) of modernism. One photo in the back of S,M,L, XL is particularly haunting in its image and message. It shows a larger-than-life and late Deng Xiaoping in the foreground of a painting of a coastal city, rais! ing his right hand gently to his people looking at the mural. The insert reads, "Two billion people won't be wrong." We'll find out. This is where much of Koolhaas' importance lies, his insight into what the great comparative historian and Sinophile Joseph Needham called the "Grand Titration". S,M,L, XL must endure, though it will not be read by the masses. It transcends (a dangerous word to use) architectural writing. Anyone concerned about the future of both the arts and sciences and those who wish to gain a greater understanding of our relation to our environment(s) must read this book.
Rating: 
Summary: An office reception book of the highest caliber
Review: S,M,L,XL is a basic symposium of Koolhaas architecture, views, life etc. Quite fantastic for anyone wishing to be him.Couldn't read it on the tube though.
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Summary: A poignant statement on architecture (within the typefaces)
Review: Size counts - and at the end of the millenium, our cities have never been bigger. Koolhaas understands that we must describe our urban condition in new ways, and so he does - in his radical theoretical propositions and in the very manner of presenting them. By organizing his material by the size of each project, he lets this tome culminate in his grand speculation of big urbanism - the Generic City. On the content alone of this collection of work delivered by the OMA, Koolhaas stands as an authoritative figure on the state of architecture and the city. By presenting his work through a techno-psychotic videoscreen, he invests his labours with the fragmented graphics of a psyched-out generation. A cursory glance will not reveal the subtleties of this masterwork.
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Summary: S.M.L.XL in Reprint soon
Review: The bible of architecture, S.M.L.XL seems to be reprinted in fall 2002, at least this is the information I have from Monacelli:
"Monacelli are planning to reprint it and it should be availed in the fall." Greetings from Austria, Patrick
Rating:
Summary: Perfect desert island fare, huge range, its own Web site!
Review: The book's designer, Bruce Mau, has as much to do with its impact as the famed architect author, Rem Koolhaas. This is a "drop-in-anytime" book. Open any page, and let yourself go on the main story, squint at the working drawings, cruise the side margins gleaned from a multitude of literary and professional sources.I compare it to a rich Web site... you enter anywhere and link to new topics and images in a surprising and stimulating way. As a personal challenge, I attacked the book in the most plebeian fashion- from cover to cover, an effort spanning several months, hence true desert island satisfaction.Certain of the stories have been reviewed by others as fairy tales, and I did read them as such. Imagine my surprise reading other architectural histories to find they were virtually true! The graphically-assisted view of project relationships is welcome to any project planner. After a dose of Koolhaas' generic city, you will see your world through new eyes. Despite its uncomfortable bulk, S M L XL contains enormous energy and insights, and is not for the architect or urban planner only. Also, despite its enormous bulk, it is well bound and will not disintegrate as you lug it all over in the significant amount of time it will take you to finish it! Compliments to Monacelli for publishing it, and risking our tolerance for a behemoth edition.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect desert island fare, huge range, its own Web site!
Review: The book's designer, Bruce Mau, has as much to do with its impact as the famed architect author, Rem Koolhaas. This is a "drop-in-anytime" book. Open any page, and let yourself go on the main story, squint at the working drawings, cruise the side margins gleaned from a multitude of literary and professional sources.
I compare it to a rich Web site... you enter anywhere and link to new topics and images in a surprising and stimulating way. As a personal challenge, I attacked the book in the most plebeian fashion- from cover to cover, an effort spanning several months, hence true desert island satisfaction.
Certain of the stories have been reviewed by others as fairy tales, and I did read them as such. Imagine my surprise reading other architectural histories to find they were virtually true! The graphically-assisted view of project relationships is welcome to any project planner.
After a dose of Koolhaas' generic city, you will see your world through new eyes. Despite its uncomfortable bulk, S M L XL contains enormous energy and insights, and is not for the architect or urban planner only. Also, despite its enormous bulk, it is well bound and will not disintegrate as you lug it all over in the significant amount of time it will take you to finish it! Compliments to Monacelli for publishing it, and risking our tolerance for a behemoth edition.
Rating: 
Summary: Extra Medium...
Review: 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.
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