Rem Koolhaas

Neuroscience has a catchphrase: "consciousness lags behind reality." What this means is that perceptions take a split second to be absorbed down the brain's neural pathways. But this rule doesn't seem to apply to Rem Koolhaas. The Dutch-born architect-polemicist appears to outpace reality, to identify the emerging patterns of modern life before they are fully formed — and certainly before the rest of us wake up to them. For instance, it was Koolhaas, in his 1978 book Delirious New York , who deciphered what he called Manhattan's "culture of congestion." At a time when cities were in bad odor, especially that one,...