Welfare Palace Hotel Project, Roosevelt Island, New York, New York (Cutaway axonometric)

Rem Koolhaas

Madelon Vriesendorp

1976

A gouache on paper cutaway axonometric by Rem Koolhaas proposing a speculative “Welfare Palace Hotel” on Roosevelt Island that uses stacked, interlocking volumes to explore new arrangements of program, circulation, and social life.

What hits you first is the theatrical isolation—mint-green towers and flattened interior scenes hovering over a deep black void, linked by ramps and terraces, with tiny figures and a lone raft below that make the scale feel uncanny and cinematic.

The work exemplifies Koolhaas’s 1970s strategy of using richly detailed architectural drawings as social critique and invention, turning axonometric representation into a narrative tool that helped reshape how architects visualize mixed-use programs and urban policy ideas.

Palette

Art Terms

Architectural drawing Gouache Architecture Built environment Cityscape Urbanization

Exhibitions

Built in USA: Post-War Architecture

1953

Architectural Models from the Collection

1974

Architecture in Government Housing

1936

Architecture in the New York Area

1952