OMA / Progress - Exhibition @ The Barbican; 9 Nov

I went to see OMA Progess at the Barbican.

http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2011/10/Progress-at-the-Barbican_26.jpg

OMA, (or the Office for Metropolitan Architecture) for those who don't know, are one of the biggest architectural practices of the present day, headed by the hugely influential and well known Rem Koolhaas, who founded OMA back in 1975 with three others; Elia and Zoe Zenghelis and Madelon Vriesendorp. This exhibition was put together by another practice, Rotor, who were given unparalleled access to the studios and materials of OMA. This gives the exhibition the interesting perspective of the practice as a company, with all its banal everyday workings of being an office, while at the same time managing to portray the extraordinary work undertaken there; for example there is a room with a A1 colour printer standing in it, with a drawing draped over it as if it has just been printed, and then there are the photos of joke emails that were sent round the office, a picture of a guy asleep at his desk, and the 'secret room', a box covered on 5 sides, ceiling included, with the contents of the wastepaper baskets of OMA.

Then there is the presentation of the work itself. There are of course many amazing models, and their work has been categorized under different room titles; i think there is one on materials, for example; so that you wander around the main space, perhaps encountering the same project in many different ways in different rooms, only partial aspects being considered as they explore the given 'theme'.
I haven't yet mentioned the entrance to the exhibition, which itself begins to explore the way OMA work. Finding yourself in a colourful winding passage with lifesize people cut-outs makes you feel like you are part of one of their presentations; one of those populated visions that OMA do so well, showing how a building might be used. Its kind of surreal.

As i said, it is charming to see all the strange and quirky things be presented by another practice; the first thing you see upon entering the exhibition proper, is a couple of lumps of clay on a podium; the people who put together this exhibition don't know what they are any more than we do; they present them as found in OMA offices, declaring that it could just be leftover clay, or it may have been some kind of exploratory model or experiment. You just don't know.

OMA's Website
Rotor - OMA / Progress Exhibition  - lots of photos of the exhibition.