March 5, 2008
What’s Up With All The Death Stars?
It’s a case of life imitating art as Death Stars sprout around the globe and the inevitable looms as competing Galactic Empires will surely annihilate the planet. Rem Koolhaas strikes first with a new scheme for Dubai. It’s like Manhattan…but way more futuristic and in the desert:
[Image via NYT]
The 44-story sphere is actually a “a self-contained three-dimensional urban neighborhood” containing smaller spheres joined together by a series of tubes. As is their nature, OMA seem to be establishing a new intra-office archetype (quick, call the patent office!), as this scheme is not entirely dissimilar from the one they visited with the RAK Convention and Exhibition Centre…
[Image via OMA]
The RAK is a scheme so original, it’s actually Original – as in primoridal. In the architect’s words: “the sphere and the bar explicitly abandon claims to formal invention or ‘originality’. (The sphere even existed before man itself…) Yet both geometries still continue to feed the architectural imagination: perfectly autonomous shapes, within their bounds the promise of a perfect world.”
Moving on, it’s time to forget about 5-star hotels, because Heerim Architects have designed what appears to be a Death Star Hotel in Baku, Azerbaijain:
[Image via Inhabitat]
The rendering is a bit misleading though, as this isn’t a sphere at all. It’s more of a disk – a Death Palette if you will. Way less terrifying, and way less likely to engineer a complete takeover of the universe.
And just for good measure, let’s include the original piece of interstellar architecture that inspired these bold new designs:
[Image via George Lucas' brain]
Oh, and just so this post isn’t ENTIRELY without academic reference, consider this sentence the obligatory Boullee reference.
· City on the Gulf: Koolhaas Lays Out a Grand Urban Experiment in Dubai [NY Times]
· Death Star Lunar Hotel in Baku, Azerbaijan [Inhabitat]
· Rem Koolhaas, Tunisia, and Sandcrawlers [Life Without Buildings]
· Otto Wagner and the Millenium Falcon [Life Without Buildings]
· OMA will Eat Itself [Life Without Buildings]
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Comments
6 Responses to “What’s Up With All The Death Stars?”
6 Responses to “What’s Up With All The Death Stars?”
I completely agree. WTF is up with this death star craze? Where is it even coming from?
they could at least have giant laser beams if they’re going to ape the deathstar…
Will Jedi training be provided?
Impressive. It could be nice to be there to take some pictures… But it seems too fake.
this is a really beautiful sphere competition entry
http://www.esaruskeepaa.com/jeongok-ri.htm
[...] says Reinier de Graaf, of OMA. So what does that say about the OMA-designed Death Star? Does it [...]