Cover of "Countryside, A Report" shows three women in traditional dress with objects, posing before a wooden building. The text says: "Countryside in your pocket!"—offering a glimpse into non-urban life.
An open copy of "Countryside, A Report" shows color photos of urban fields and buildings. The left page lists project details; the right describes Rem Koolhaas’s Urban Field, with text separated by a yellow bar running across both pages.
A young girl stands before a glass diorama of ducks and wetlands, with map names overlaying the museum display, evoking the quiet beauty captured in Countryside, A Report.
A photo spread from "Countryside, A Report" shows a man in a rural forest interacting closely with gorillas—laughing, mimicking gestures, and sharing playful moments amid the non-urban landscape.
An open book of "Countryside, A Report" shows two pages: the left has text and a color portrait of a woman in a red dress; the right features text and a black-and-white anatomical illustration with references to rural areas.
The open book "Countryside, A Report" displays photos of crops and vegetables, harvested produce, plant pests, and leaf close-ups with damage or insects. Each image includes a brief text description.
Cover of "Countryside, A Report" shows three women in traditional dress with objects, posing before a wooden building. The text says: "Countryside in your pocket!"—offering a glimpse into non-urban life.
An open copy of "Countryside, A Report" shows color photos of urban fields and buildings. The left page lists project details; the right describes Rem Koolhaas’s Urban Field, with text separated by a yellow bar running across both pages.
A young girl stands before a glass diorama of ducks and wetlands, with map names overlaying the museum display, evoking the quiet beauty captured in Countryside, A Report.
A photo spread from "Countryside, A Report" shows a man in a rural forest interacting closely with gorillas—laughing, mimicking gestures, and sharing playful moments amid the non-urban landscape.
An open book of "Countryside, A Report" shows two pages: the left has text and a color portrait of a woman in a red dress; the right features text and a black-and-white anatomical illustration with references to rural areas.
The open book "Countryside, A Report" displays photos of crops and vegetables, harvested produce, plant pests, and leaf close-ups with damage or insects. Each image includes a brief text description.

Countryside, A Report

$12.00
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The rural, remote, and wild territories we call "countryside", or the 98% of the earth's surface not occupied by cities, make up the front line where today's most powerful forces-climate and ecological devastation, migration, tech, demographic lurches-are playing out. Increasingly under a 'Cartesian' regime-gridded, mechanized, and optimized for maximal production-these sites are changing beyond recognition. In his latest publication, Rem Koolhaas explores the rapid and often hidden transformations underway across the Earth's vast non-urban areas.

Countryside, A Report gathers travelogue essays exploring territories marked by global forces and experimentation at the edge of our consciousness: a test site near Fukushima, where the robots that will maintain Japan's infrastructure and agriculture are tested; a greenhouse city in the Netherlands that may be the origin for the cosmology of today's countryside; the rapidly thawing permafrost of Central Siberia, a region wrestling with the possibility of relocation; refugees populating dying villages in the German countryside and intersecting with climate change activists; habituated mountain gorillas confronting humans on ?their? territory in Uganda; the American Midwest, where industrial-scale farming operations are coming to grips with regenerative agriculture; and Chinese villages transformed into all-in-one factory, e-commerce stores, and fulfillment centers.

This book is the official companion to the Guggenheim Museum exhibition Countryside, The Future. The exhibition and book mark a new area of investigation for architect and urbanist Rem Koolhaas, who launched his career with two city-centric entities: The Office for Metropolitan Architecture (1975) and Delirious New York (1978). It's designed by Irma Boom, who drew inspiration for the book's pocket-sized concept, as well as its innovative typography and layout, from her research in the Vatican library.

The book brings together collaborative research by AMO, Koolhaas, and students at the Harvard Graduate School of Design; the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing; Wageningen University in the Netherlands; and the University of Nairobi. Contributors also include Samir Bantal, Janna Bystrykh, Troy Conrad Therrien, Lenora Ditzler, Clemens Driessen, Alexandra Kharitonova, Keigo Kobayashi, Niklas Maak, Etta Madete, Federico Martelli, Ingo Niermann, Dr. Linda Nkatha Gichuyia, Kayoko Ota, Stephan Petermann, and Anne M. Schneider.

  • Softcover
  • 3.9 x 6.3 in.
  • 352 pages
  • Published in 2020

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