Theory
Bigness
Explore in the Atlas →Rem Koolhaas's thesis that beyond a critical mass a building becomes a self-sufficient world whose scale severs the bond between interior and exterior, exhausts conventional composition, and renders it indifferent to context ('fuck context').
Production Settlement
Details
- Introduced
- 1990s
Classifications
- Holder
- Individual
- Source of authority
- Observation
- Subject
- Human centred
- Mode of transmission
- Text drawing
- Knowledge type
- Propositional
- Epistemic cluster
- Western philosophical
Connections
- relates to The Generic City
- relates to Junkspace
Referenced by
- Rem Koolhaas proposed
Sources
- Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau. Bigness, or the Problem of Large (in S,M,L,XL). The Monacelli Press, 1995.
Cite this entry
First published May 2026Last revised Jul 2026
CLAD. "Bigness." Atlas of Architectural Thought. CLAD, 2026. https://www.cl-ad.com.au/research/atlas/theory/bigness/. Accessed July 17, 2026.