"The most radical, modern components of our civilization are taking place in the countryside", says Rem Koolhaas in a short video teaser about his upcoming exhibition "Countryside, The Future" at the Guggenheim Museum, in New York. 

"What is absurdly ambitious, I think, is to do something on a global scale," adds Koolhaas.

Set to be opened to the public on February 20, 2020, the exhibition, directed by architect and urbanist Rem Koolhaas and Samir Bantal, Director of AMO, the think tank of OMA, will be investigating urgent environmental, political, and socio-economic issues through the lens of architect and urbanist Rem Koolhaas and Samir Bantal.  

The exhibition will be on view until August 14, 2020 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

Video by Guggenheim Museum

This is the first major research exhibition of the Guggenheim Museum in this magnitude 

Koolhaas emphasizes that this will be the "unique exhibition" for the Guggenheim Museum dedicating itself to everything but without an art. 

"This will be the first time that a major art institution will dedicate itself entirely to everything that is not art," Koolhaas continued.  

"We believe this is a project with the capacity to reframe the global debate around what urbanism means today," OMA added. 

The exhibition will include photos, archival materials, videos, case studies and findings that will fill the Guggenheim Museum's rotunda premised on original research.

"Countryside, The Future" will explore radical changes in the rural, remote, and wild territories collectively identified here as "countryside," or the 98% of the earth’s surface not occupied by cities, based on original research.

Rem Koolhaas; Troy Conrad Therrien, Curator of Architecture and Digital Initiatives, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Samir Bantal, Director of AMO. Image © Kristopher McKay © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 2019.

The exhibition will examine the modern conception of leisure, large scale planning by political forces, climate change, migration, human- and non-human ecosystems, market driven preservation, artificial and organic coexistence and other forms of radical experimentation that are altering the landscapes across the world.

"New York is obviously a fantastic platform to launch a show which is about the absolute opposite of New York— the space on the earth outside the city, i.e., the countryside," said Koolhaas in this short video. 

"An exhibition like this would have been impossible 20 years ago," Koolhaas added.

Highly artificial and sterile environments are employed to create the ideal organic specimen. Today’s glass houses contain all the essential ingredients of life but none of the redundancies: sun, soil, and water are emulated, optimized, and finally automated. Image © Pieternel van Velden

"We have teams of researchers that are in the field interviewing, listening, data gathering, and analyzing all their data," said Samir Bantal, Director of AMO.

"Some of the answers that we’re looking for regarding to climate change and migration, preservation, these answers are to be found in the countryside. And by looking at these as a total, that could lead to interesting solutions." 

"These are stories that are defining our future on earth," Bantal added.

AMO’s selection of unique and highly specific conditions distributed over the globe serves as a framework for their research and represents where the world is headed. Image courtesy of OMA

For this research and project, Rem Koolhaas and AMO worked with students at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, Wageningen University, Netherlands and the University of Nairobi.

Through the full presentation of the radical transformations at the rural parts of the world, visitors will be able to discover curious encounters and stories that intersect with topics such as climate change, migration, preservation, and evolution.

Samir Bantal and Rem Koolhaas will also be giving a lecture on April 23, 2020 at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, with the participation of Troy Conrad Therrien and Sarah Whiting.

OMA was founded by Rem Koolhaas in Rotterdam in 1975 . The firm is an international practice operating within the traditional boundaries of architecture and urbanism. 

The firm is led by nine partners – Rem Koolhaas, Ellen van Loon, Reinier de Graaf, Shohei Shigematsu, Iyad Alsaka, Chris van Duijn, Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, Jason Long, and Managing Partner-Architect David Gianotten.

OMA has offices in Rotterdam, New York, Hong Kong, Beijing, Doha, Dubai and Brisbane.

Rem Koolhaas is one of World Architecture Community's first Members (since 2007). 

Top image: Rem Koolhaas, courtesy of video.

> via Guggenheim Museum