In 1982, the French State was looking to transform 55 hectares located in the North of Paris. This was to become la Villette Park. Before it was transformed in this way, Bernard Tschumi had to triumph over Rem Koolhaas in an international competition. To the surprise of Patrice Goulet, architectural critic and a regular contributor to AA. For him, the jury failed to see “the originality of Rem Koolhaas’s language”.

This AA Retro feature looks back on an ambitious but non-completed project by the Dutch architect. The main concern of OMA’s proposal was that of density, modeled on the “manhattanism” theory developed in Delirious New York written by Rem Koolhaas himself.

Click on the cover below to discover OMA’s project for la Villette Park, published in AA #227 – June 1983.