Joshua Prince-Ramus believes that if architects re-engineer their design process, the results can be spectacular. Speaking at TEDxSMU, Dallas, he walks us through his fantastic re-creation of the local Wyly Theater as a giant “theatrical machine” that reconfigures itself at the touch of a button.
With one of the decade’s most celebrated buildings under his belt, Joshua Prince-Ramus would seem well-positioned to become the world’s next “starchitect.” Except that he doesn’t want the job. With his quiet intensity and intellectual bearing, Prince-Ramus is the antithesis of the egomaniacal master architect. He flatly rejects not just the title, but the entire notion of a “starchitect” designing with a genius stroke of the pen.
Prince-Ramus is best known for his work — with Rem Koolhaas‘ radical Dutch architecture firm OMA — on the Seattle Central Library. The striking, diamond-windowed structure reimagines, to spectacular effect, the library’s role in a modern urban context. “Seattle’s new Central Library is a blazing chandelier to swing your dreams upon,” Herbert Muschamp wrote in The New York Times. “In more than 30 years of writing about architecture, this is the most exciting new building it has been my honor to review.”
Having founded the US practice of OMA in 2000, Prince-Ramus split from Rem Koolhaas in May 2006 to found a new firm, REX, with colleague Erez Ella. He continues to take what he describes as a hyper-rational approach to architecture, pushing logic and rational ideas to their limits to create buildings that are unexpected, but wholly appropriate to their environment and intended use. REX’s current projects include Museum Plaza in Louisville, the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre in Dallas; the Vestbanen redevelopment in Oslo, Norway; and the new headquarters for design house Vakko, in Istanbul. REX is also one of five finalists for the Governors Island redevelopment in New York.
