Curated by Rotor

Nearly forty years after completing his thesis at London’s Architectural Association, Rem Koolhaas, the frequent-flying founding partner of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), will have a homecoming. Coinciding with the completion of the firm’s first permanent building in London—the Rothschild bank headquarters—this exhibition will explore the global range of OMA’s influential practice, from its formation in 1975 through celebrated recent projects such as the Seattle Central Library (2004), Porto’s Casa da Música (2005), and the ongoing China Central Television headquarters in Beijing. In keeping with the extralarge ambitions of their subject, the Belgian design collective Rotor will coordinate a vast selection of OMA materials—including models, drawings, photographs, mock-ups, furniture prototypes, and films—as well as live events, an OMA-specific shop (think thick books), and “interventions” to the Barbican’s Brutalist complex itself.

— Sean Keller