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It Was A Book [george Packer Written On Our Presence In Nigeria] That Was Killed By The Response Of Other People. Which Sounds Quite Cowardly, Perhaps, But It Was The First Manifestation Of What Is Currently A Really Big Issue: How Political Correctness Defines The Limits Of What You Can Do. In That Sense, It Was Super-exciting And Maybe The Most Magical Project We Did, But At The Same Time Fraught With Mixed Feelings.

-Rem Koolhaas

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It Was A Book

Rem Koolhaas

...

It Was A Book [george Packer Written On Our Presence In Nigeria] That Was Killed By The Response Of Other People. Which Sounds Quite Cowardly, Perhaps, But It Was The First Manifestation Of What Is Currently A Really Big Issue: How Political Correctness Defines The Limits Of What You Can Do. In That Sense, It Was Super-exciting And Maybe The Most Magical Project We Did, But At The Same Time Fraught With Mixed Feelings.

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Why I Talked About Political Correctness: The Colonial Is Now Such A Major Taboo That Any Achievement Of The Colonial Period, Or Any Generosity Implied In Colonialism, Is Again Fundamentally Neglected Or Fundamentally Not Recognised. That's Crazy, Because History Is A Series Of Layers, And You Cannot Say, "this Layer I Support And This Layer I Cancel." History Is History And You Cannot Retrospectively Manipulate It.

The Acceptance Of Certain Realities Doesn't Preclude Idealism. It Can Lead To Certain Breakthroughs.

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The Great Problem Of The Concert Hall Is That The Shoebox Is The Ideal Shape For Acoustics But That No Architect Worth Their Names Wants To Build A Shoebox.

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I Studied In London In 1968. Our School Had A Separate Department Of Tropical Architecture. Of Course It Was Totally Unfashionable, Partly Because Nobody Wanted To Think About Colonialism, But Basically What You Learned There Was That, Ok, The Sun Is Here, So You Should Create Natural Ventilation Here - An Unbelievable Amount Of Really Sound Principles That Have Been Completely Abandoned, So Now Everything Is Air Conditioned With Big Machines.

That Has Been My Entire Life Story. Running Against The Current And Running With The Current. Sometimes Running With The Current Is Underestimated. The Acceptance Of Certain Realities Doesn’t Preclude Idealism. It Can Lead To Certain Breakthroughs.

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