The Hague City Hall, project, The Hague, The Netherlands, Exterior perspective

Rem Koolhaas

Ron Steiner

Götz Keller

Marty Kohn

Jeroen Thomas

Garciella Torre

Willem Jan Neutelings

Brigitte Kochta

Luc Reuse

1987

A large pastel-and-graphite drawing by Rem Koolhaas proposing an exterior for The Hague City Hall, in which he translates civic complexity into a composition of monumental, interlocking geometric volumes.

You'd be struck by the towering, block-like forms rendered with grainy, tactile shading against a luminous deep-blue sky, giving the scene a stage‑like, slightly uncanny sense of monumentality and emptiness.

The drawing exemplifies Koolhaas's late‑20th‑century experiments in formal fragmentation and programmatic ambiguity, helping to shift architectural representation toward provocative, theory-driven visions of the modern city.

Palette

Art Terms

Architectural drawing Architecture Watercolor Graphite Geometric abstraction Perspective

Exhibitions

De Stijl

1952

Built in USA: Post-War Architecture

1953

Built in the U.S.A., 1932–44

1944

Architecture of Museums

1968