or spatial layout for example, the contrast creates a dynamic composition that is always teasing and provoking critics to the point of irritation. Hybridisation of ideas, elements and building program create new architectural scenarios; Koolhaas incessantly experiments and speculates through combining building functions in his work. As seen in the Maison á Bordeaux, the building’s core is an elevator but simultaneously operates as a working space. He utilises this same technique of hybridisation in his larger projects to experiment with social behaviour on an urban scale. Where Le Corbusier and Mies freed the horizontal plan, Koolhaas’s interest in the elevator and vertical connection has brought freedom to the section that is considered in many of his projects. Again, the hydraulic platform of Koolhaas’s final villa changes the horizontal configuration of the plan but equally alters the vertical spatial relationships in section, depending on its position. The evolution of this language can be seen with every successive villa; it began relatively restrained in the Patiovilla but immediately accelerated in the Villa Dall’Ava and was further refined in the Dutch House. Finally it became fully established in the Maison á Bordeaux but true to the work of OMA, ‘Koolhaas Modernism’ is not a mere style but rather a series of techniques to formulate modern architecture. Beyond the villas discussed and within the larger scale projects, Koolhaas continues to quote himself but in doing so, perseveres to reinterpret each citation.
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