Villa dall'Ava, Paris (Saint-Cloud), France, Exterior perspective

Rem Koolhaas

Madelon Vriesendorp

1987

An exterior perspective of Rem Koolhaas’s proposed Villa dall’Ava, painted with synthetic polymer and ink on paper to stage the design’s fragmented modern volumes and reveal its internal relationships.

You first notice the house floating in a flat gray field—bold, colored geometric blocks (pink, teal, navy) are sliced open to expose stairways and rooms, all rendered with a cool, meticulous flatness that reads like a theatrical model.

The drawing exemplifies Koolhaas’s use of graphic, narrative imagery as a design tool, a strategy that helped shift late‑20th‑century architecture toward image‑driven, programmatic work that treats representation as part of the concept.

Palette

Art Terms

Architectural drawing Architecture Acrylic paint Ink Perspective Figure/ground relationship

Exhibitions

Modern Architecture for the Modern School

1942

Villa Savoye: Destruction through Neglect

1966

Visionary Architecture

1960

Architectural Models from the Collection

1974