1995's SMLXL was a massive book and a novel about architecture. Conceived by Rem Koolhaas - author of Delirious
New York - and Bruce Mau - designer of Zone - as a free-fall in the space of typographic imagination, the book's title "Small, Medium, Large, Extra-Large" was also its framework: projects and essays were arranged according to scale. The book combined essays, manifestoes, diaries, fairy tales, travelogues, a cycle of meditations on the ground of contemporary city,
with work produced by Koolhaas' Office for Metropolitan Architecture over a period of twenty years.
This accumulation of words and images illuminated the condition of architecture at its time, its splendors and miseries.
We add a last chapter to this groundbreaking scale-based selection: the XS; equivalent of micro scaled projects or urban acupunctures that are essential for the weaker economies. This selection of our own work, writings and projects continues
and pays tribute to one of the greatest publications in architecture or urbanism throughout the 20th century.
Credit
Oliver Schütte and Marije van Lidth de Jeude with project specific support.
Various locations, 2004 – ongoing.