Rem before Koolhaas

Presenting early interviews by Rem Koolhaas in translation for the first time alongside original weekly newspaper layouts
Expanding the field of Koolhaas studies into the 1960s by uncovering his lesser-known journalistic career
Exploring the role of the interview for architecture as a means of critical inquiry

Rem Before Koolhaas is the first book to uncover Rem Koolhaas’s early work as a journalist for Haagse Post between 1963 and 1967. Offering a fresh look at this period and including a new interview with Koolhaas, Antonio Cantero explores how Koolhaas’s interviews often became essayistic pieces that register power dynamics, social realities and cultural shifts within a specific media ecology. Featuring original Haagse Post layouts and first-time English translations, Cantero’s book reveals Koolhaas as both an observer of his time and an interviewer for whom writing became a space for learning. Rather than treating journalism as a biographical precursor to his architectural career, Rem Before Koolhaas presents it not as a professional identity but as a retrospective position from which this body of work can be read on its own terms.

Dr. Antonio Cantero is an architect and assistant professor of architecture at TU Delft