>> from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. charlie: rem koolhaas is here. he is one of the most influential architects who works today. he is an author, theorist, and a professor at harvard. some of his most notable projects include the cctv headquarters in beijing, and casa da musica in portugal. the two major buildings have been opened in the last year are the garage museum of contemporary art in moscow and the prada in milan. i am pleased to have him back at

this table. we missed out two years ago when you were in venice. it continues to be a great life for you. rem: it is an amazing life because it enables me to be at places where things are radically changing. there is a need to articulate a particular ambition. there is a need to intervene in a situation. it is really a great opportunity. charlie: what you do, you have to define the time we are in. rem: my role is a reporter who is simply alert and describing changes.

as you describe the change, you find the opportunities where to intervene. a sense of forming -- a moment in time when things are changing from one condition to another. charlie: you began life as a writer? rem: as a journalist. as an interviewer. charlie: at 71, you are going strong. rem: maybe i go strong, but i am part of a large organization.

i think i could never do what i do, we could never do what we do without our collaborators. the average age of the office is maybe 32. maybe i am getting older. charlie: you have people who come to work with you and then go off to do great things on their own. rem: i have enabled many people to emancipate themselves from our environment. charlie: it is very important to have lived in the time of rem. you are a legend. rem: i am dutch and that means i am incapable of dealing -- they cannot handle praise. they cannot receive celebrity. charlie: you keep your base in rotterdam. it keeps your feet on the

ground. rem: completely immune to who we are, completely indifferent to who we are. we are totally free. charlie: someone else said, you remain a first-rate provocateur -- and you do. you have been that all your life. rem: i do not know if it is an issue of star sign. i think it is not provocation. it is partly dna, intellectual interest to formulate what the issues are. that enables me to name what the issues are. the particular ability to name them will create provocation

because it may not be that the world is ready to draw the same conclusions. charlie: you work more like a conceptual artist than an architect. is that right? rem: we operate in a wide range of things. in the world around us, fewer and fewer professions gained their previous identity. many streams are getting blurred. i am benefiting from that blur. i am benefiting from the fact that people are willing, not only to consider a predefined profession or a predefined territory or role, but are willing to experiment and see how things can be combined or redefined or reinvented. charlie: that is what you have

done all your life. how can i redefine the way we think of space? how can i redefine the way we think of old and new? between urban and rural? rem: i am lucky to live in this time. the time itself is redefining all of those conditions. charlie: you have resisted the idea of a singular aesthetic. some would argue that is what frank has done. you may disagree with that. some would say that. you resist that. rem: we love camouflage. we are not always interested to

assert our own identity in every condition. we think architecture is interesting combination of imposition and yielding. you yield to an environment. you also absorb a set of needs that exist. for this reason, there is maybe a subtlety that means we need to be different in every case because every case is different. charlie: if i went to beijing with a group of architects, architects know the history of architecture and the identification of artists, and i showed them cctv, would they say, i know that is rem koolhaas? before everybody knew it was

such a popular building. rem: you would have to try. charlie: what do you think? is there something in that building other than the fact that is so different, would define it?

rem: it was a huge challenge. therefore, i tried to accept every part of the challenge. therefore, it is the kind of building that has not only one dimension, it is also an organization, a feat of engineering, also an identity that is not stable, also looks completely different from every side. very complex entity, and perhaps people would recognize complexity as a characteristic. charlie: how did you win that commission? rem: it was very interesting. the competition was run by a very young chinese lady who studied international law in oxford, 35 years old. we will invite five foreigners and five chinese people. we wanted to be a completely honest process.

speaking to her, there was a real intelligence there. there was a jury. the jury selected us. the issue became how to convince the government and the different parties in government that this was the right step. this was also orchestrated by her in terms of meetings with chinese politicians. i stayed for a long time in beijing. slowly, but surely, we were able to convince people. charlie: what is interesting is

recently xi jinping said, we have too many weird buildings. rem: it is very weird that politicians talk about architecture. i found it encouraging. we became associated with weird buildings syndrome. of course, the building is a serious building and i can say in confidence that cctv was visited by one of the chinese ministers who came to the conclusion that it was a sincere and serious contribution to china. the weird stigma has been taken away. that is a good thing, i think.

charlie: you and i talked about this right before we turned the cameras on, you won the competition. five other people lost. they invested as much time as you did. they care deeply. they pushed and shoved and imagined and reimagined. rem: some of them were my friends, are my friends. charlie: my dream is to put together, have an exhibition from the best architects in the world, all the projects that did not get selected. it is not a perfect process. it has to do with a range of human emotions and experience and education and politics, all of that. wouldn't it be great to see all of the buildings? rem: it is interesting to compete. there is a compelling argument that by competing, you get the

best. some of our most imaginative buildings were not able to convince people at the right moment. the thing we did 10 years ago might be accepted today. there is an inherent sadness and the whole thing. by being a writer, i was able to reduce that sadness and convey the contents or the meaning of certain things. it is very important as an architect, building something is so rare, you develop forms of can indication or forms of presentation to make sure things don't simply disappear. charlie: are you happiest

writing or building? designing? teaching? rem: two completely different forms of happiness. in the first case, happiness over teamwork and collaboration. i have had the most stimulating and amazing -- i never would have had on my own. simply through the construction of collaboration, you are pushed in different directions. it is a wonderful feeling. it is wonderful to be a monk in a cell and to have a feeling you are capturing a new reality or

insight in the world of ideas. the world of observation. charlie: are you more of an observational character or innovative character? rem: i try to be both and i think it is necessary to be both. i am in a little person. it is very often what triggers invention. it is the basis for new thinking. charlie: here are some things you have said. you admitted you are somewhere between bored and irritated by

the current course of architecture. rem: maybe i will take the last thing back. charlie: irritated, but not necessarily bored. you said architecture today is forcing people to be extravagant even if they do not want to or need to. rem: in the 1960's and part of the 1970's, we were connected to -- we could be complacent or convinced we were serving the general cause. since the enormous escalation of the economy, we are working more and more with private individuals. charlie: and we have more and more people with a lot of money.

rem: we are not playing the same role. in that new role, we sometimes have to build items because it is important to a particular brand or we have to build a building because it is a source of pride. the ambitions have radically changed. ♪ charlie: you also embrace the idea of preservation. somehow helping to find a new relationship with architecture. rem: it is almost like -- such

charlie: you also embrace the idea of preservation. somehow helping to find a new relationship with architecture. rem: it is almost like -- such an expectation that we do

extravagant things. nice to discover a more modest terrain where we can intervene and if we add something, a few new things. very interesting. if you work on preservation, you discover in terms of dimensions or in terms of scale, in the past, things were possible that are no longer possible. for instance, in the case of the foundation, it became a key part of the project. from scratch, we could never

have done. the generosity, we were able to capture. charlie: we will talk about both of those museums later. were you surprised as you delved into it? soviet architecture? rem: i came to moscow for the first time in 1967. i was unaware of the architecture. i became aware of the radical perception of architecture. it reinvented daily life.

from the beginning, i was less interested in form, but in the role in architecture in helping to define daily life. at the time, i was a scriptwriter. architecture is also a form of script writing. this is a living room and here is the staircase and there is the kitchen. implicitly, you describe it as pristine. that made it a very easy switch. charlie: preservation and modernist architecture. rem: the interesting thing about preservation, we previously thought the world was divided into architects who make and preservation sabotages the

architect. when i looked into preservation, it was part of the whole process of modernization. it was invented after the french revolution. it makes perfect sense. you have to decide what to keep. preservation is a form of selection. you have to understand it as part of modernization. when we discovered that, it became very creative territory. charlie: what does conventional beauty mean to you? rem: very difficult to really

talk about conventional beauty. what we prefer or what we are more comfortable with, discover the beauty of organization or the beauty of an artificial landscape. in all of those steps, there is an aesthetic. the aesthetic of the modern. there are moments that we tried to be addressing the issue of beauty. we covered a small tower in gold leaf, a form of recognition. otherwise, for me, beauty is the combination of imagination and rational organization. charlie: do you have an ordered

mind? rem: i can be very ordered. i can also be chaotic when i want to. charlie: take musicians who will tell me in order for them to be -- they have to understand the order of music in order to be creative about music. there has to be a discipline and a sense of order in the way things are in order to be able to create something that is

fresh. rem: gravity is very strong and cannot be reversed. everything we do, we do within that regime. architects have to be disciplined, but also have to know the importance of escaping from the discipline. charlie: are you a filmmaker who says to me, i always see something else i could have done? rem: the moment you are building, the engagement is deep

and profound. when things are over and open, i can let it go and enjoy it as an outsider. charlie: without knowing what might have been. rem: i am a realist, i am able to enjoy reality. sometimes, in the best cases, our buildings become a reality. i am efficient when i have to be. inefficient -- charlie: when you want to be. take a look at this. show the prada building.

rem: inside that compound, building two new things. one you cannot see. the second one, you can see it emerging, which is the tower. it introduces vertical spaces in this horizontal entity. in order to create excitement, beauty, and an exceptional moment, this small tower is in gold. gold is so reflective. its aura permeates the entire space. if you are close to it, you look like a god.

charlie: you cannot really tell if you are in an old building or a new one. rem: we created a seamless situation. charlie: you wanted to make this a single entity. rem: a single complex. a sequence of spatial experiences. charlie: does this present new opportunities for displaying art? rem: i think it does. it is not betting on only one or two special conditions. we were able to vary the situation. one sequence of rooms deliberately starts with very

small rooms and every next room is bigger. the sequence goes on for seven or eight rooms. although the nature of the building -- each sculpture looks completely different. charlie: look at this. tell me what i am seeing. rem: this is quite original. the opening exhibition was about sculpture. they all are greek examples. the roman sculptural art -- they were able to assemble many of the same kind of sculpture.

strong qualities of originality with a generic approach. you see a filter -- it is part of this relationship between old and new where you are never quite sure where you are. charlie: next slide. rem: this is part of prada. they are not about only one thing, but they are about the diversity of things. what they did, when it was over,

ballet in the same space. it was an extremely moving moment. it sort of became alive. charlie: we go to the garage in moscow. how did this come about? was this a competition? rem: this was not a competition. came to us and simply asked us to work with her on the replacement of the garage. soviet architecture of the 1920's, and it had been abandoned. we came to the conclusion that we could convert it into a

museum space. charlie: this is near gorky park? rem: inside gorky park. it was being completely renovated. it is part of the modernization. charlie: you describe this as not restoring the building, but preserving its decay. rem: why a building becomes in ruins is interesting. whether than making everything new -- charlie: what is that? rem: it is a form of plastic that has a beautiful effect. it is reflective and it is also translucent. it is a great abstract version

of what you see outside. if you are inside, you are aware that you are in the park, but you do not see the detail of the park so you can focus what is on the inside. charlie: next slide. look at this. rem: this is what i meant with preserving decay. there was a soviet mural. it conveyed a happy sense of communal life. it was not entirely intact anymore. rather than restore it in its entirety, we wanted all to see what the building had gone through. charlie: this is the place that inspired you to be an architect. rem: moscow.

i feel really privileged to be able to witness over such a long time how it changes. charlie: how would you characterize it today in terms of its energy, in terms of its outlook? rem: first of all, the educational system in russia has been an on a high level. russians are very educated, very intelligent, very inclined to mathematics. that gives you a wonderful level. charlie: different than china?

rem: russians read and they read the classics. the classics are very vivid. all of that gives you a density and a depth. the younger generation is extremely imaginative and creative. charlie: in an interesting way, taking an existing structure and putting a new coat on it, having something to work with alleviates the pressure to be so totally spectacularly new.

rem: it is a wonderful discovery that we make by embracing preservation. it also allows you to focus on what is potentially needs to be changed. ♪

charlie: decision-makers in

places like china tend to be young. true in russia, too? rem: it is difficult to say. i think there is a young generation with an enormous appetite. charlie: and a lot of money, too. rem: the great thing about preservation, it enables us to move out of the association with luxury and extravagance. charlie: let's go quickly to the cctv. there it is. every hotel you look out, there it is. tell us what went into that

imagination that created the structure. rem: nothing really dictated it. i have worked for media companies before. it is a combination of studios -- most similar to universal city. when we worked for universal city, in a creative company, there is a tendency for each part to isolate itself from the other parts. what we wanted to do is to look like an organization where each part and each member was confronted with all of the other ones. that explains the loop and the continuity of the building.

the byproduct of that is the building looks completely different from every angle. sometimes it looks like a circle. it was crucial to inject an identity which would change with your own movement through the city. charlie: where would you put this on the pantheon of things you have done? rem: it is an amazing thing to be one of the authors. charlie: i was trying to push you into something beyond that. that is as much as i'm going to get from you.

take a look at this slide. technology has changed architecture. and you say it has invaded our privacy like we never would have imagined. you are not happy about that. rem: in venice, we chose as one of the major exhibitions, elements of architecture, people were horrified, in part, that we would look at such things as doors, floors, and windows. we looked at these elements in different cultures and also through time. we realized in many of these elements, digital culture has

infiltrated those elements. therefore, many of the elements of architecture change their nature in a drastic way and were becoming interactive or closely monitoring users or inhabitants. charlie: you said this was a potentially sinister dimension. rem: yes. as a writer, you use rhetoric. it is a bit heavy to be confronted with your own rhetoric. maybe lower the alert. maybe it is not a red alert.

it is simply an observation that this lady is on a toilet, each event on the toilet is recorded. charlie: features a urine sample catcher that can measure glucose levels, useful for diabetics, hormone levels, and communicates with the user's computer by wi-fi compiling a health report. i am ok with that. rem: you are ok with that? with the frequency that toilets imply. 24 hours a day? charlie: i understand all of the dimensions of people's medical information ought to be private.

other people should not have access to it because it violates the rights of privacy. i also believe we have sensors and devices that can alert us to our health, really significant, and we would be much healthier if we had a greater sense of how our body was functioning. rem: in that sense, i am in a difficult position. it is not that we want to warn against these technologies. we want to alert the world that if you add all of them together, and overdose or an element of

surveillance, it is like sitting in a car and if you want to drive without a safety belt, the car sabotages the intention. in that sense, yes, it is a smart thing. yes, it is a good thing. you are warned against a potential danger. charlie: in a digital world, it is also nothing is sacred. rem: nothing is sacred. we need to be aware of what we are giving away. that was the reason for this rhetoric. charlie: this is one more case where you are being a provocateur. rem: or a reporter. i am totally fascinated by this world. i'm trying desperately to work with than that world and for the

world to see whether there are other dimensions of using it that are providing a more urgent or more comprehensive condition. this is a picture of the countryside 100 years ago. a very structured and ordered society where the norms are shared and live in an environment they have always known. charlie: the point is what? rem: civility rules and the degree of community that is seemingly immutable. in the same place, switzerland, you see three ladies in jeans. they are a cheap labor force that maintains the second homes of affluent people in switzerland.

that changes, and that is what we have been exploring. charlie: mainstream architecture ignored the trends affecting the less populated areas. rem: we looked at the nature of the city, but we never looked at the territory of abandoned by everybody moving to the city. we never discovered the countryside is also changing, maybe changing more radically. the countryside is really changing. what is fascinating me now is for digital culture, certain

implements and processes and accommodation is needed. charlie: next slide. rem: farming has become the most digitized activity. charlie: they can tell you about all kinds of things like climate. rem: it can enable a farmer to have a position which was never possible. the computer screen has become the field itself. charlie: it is also becoming a catalyst for change for people in africa. rem: absolutely.

charlie: they could do things they could not do before. rem: in that sense, the transformation -- in africa, it is a positive and welcomed transformation. we are exploring. in nevada, near reno, a data farm. the complex of data farms. it suggests urban condition. if you look at each of these entities, you realize they are serving the digital culture. what you see are enormous complexes with barely a

population. charlie: and urbanization without people. rem: that is incredibly exciting territory. there are no people. the entire environment -- for people, we make careful spaces. charlie: take a look. the clip from a documentary made by your son. this is a documentary that will

come out -- when will this be finished? rem: this year. the point of the film is not to look at me or talk about me. it is to convey the experience of the buildings. charlie: roll tape. here is a portion of this. ♪ >> i felt it was crucial. ♪ you are always challenged by problems. that is a very abstract term. i think it is much better to say we are challenged by people's needs.

♪ charlie: react to what you just said. rem: to this? charlie: this is a sliver of it. we come away with a sense of a life in architecture. rem: i hope you come away with a sense of engagement, but not with power. not with spectacle. an engagement to really address

needs in an old-fashioned way and to address the interest of people who are inhabiting these things. you will maybe come away -- it is not huge egos that define architecture, sometimes efficient, sometimes exciting, and sometimes deep way of engaging with the world. charlie: thank you for coming. rem koolhaas for the hour. thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪

announcer: "brilliant ideas," powered by hyundai motors. narrator: the contemporary art world is vibrant and booming as never before. it is the 21st century phenomenon, a global industry in its own right. "brilliant ideas" looks at the artists at the heart of this. artists with a unique power to aspire, astonish, provoke. in this program, pioneering film artist diana thater. ♪