rotterdam, kunsthal

In Rotterdam I visited another OMA project, the Kunthal. Its stretched stair corridor (pictured on the right) caught my attention from a few hundred yards away. What makes it pertinent to my study is the way in which the ramp in the center image cuts straight through the building; very similar to the Staatsgalerie passage in Stuttgart. Another road cuts perpendicularly under the top of the ramp, while the auditorium in the image on the left ramps in the opposite direction, crossing at the entrance. Not related to my fellowship but also interesting is anther similarity to the Staatsgalerie: both designs take remarkably Mannerist stances, riffing with glee on established architectural canons. Le Corbusier is omnipresent in both. For the Staatsgalerie the architect's other source is primarily Italianate Renaissance. For the Kunsthal, Mies van der Rohe is a point of departure to which Koolhaas returns repeatedly; jazzing, ramping, and revamping.