Daily Meh is an edited stream of consciousness, by Simen.

The Generic City

In Dutch architech Rem Koolhaas’s mind, modern cities tend toward The Generic City. The Generic City emerges unplanned; it is soulless, devoid of life and individuality. It is “a city without qualities”. It “will work — that’s all”. There is no urbanism, or so he says, there is only ideology. Peter Lindberg summarizes:

The Generic City is a fractal, Koolhaas writes, repeating its shape from laptops up to skyscrapers. Buildings are torn down as they cease to fulfil its purpose. There’s no architecture in the traditional sense: everybody can be an architect. The city has no history, save for one or a few districts where all history has been concentrated. Therefore, in the Generic City everybody is a tourist. Hotels have everything you need – there’s no reason to leave.

The generic city is a copy of a copy. It copies itself to become more authentic, making it less so.

Now he’s building one.

“The Generic City”, the essay, was published in a book infamous for its weight and its 1,344 pages. I don’t think I’ll be reading it anytime soon.