Six Canonical Projects by Rem Koolhaas: Essays on the History of Ideas by Ingrid Bock

“In antiquity the very idea of urbs, which means city, is associated with ploughing, as the word is etymologically connected to urvum, which is the curve of a ploughshare. IN addition, it relates to orbis, which is a curved object: a globe and the world. Yet, thinking of the city primarily as a tissue of buildings, streets, and public squares stands in opposition to the idea of the city as primarily a community of citizens, as expressed in Nicias’s poignant words to the Athenian soldiers after the defeat at Syracuse: ‘You are yourselves the town, wherever you choose to settle…it is men that make the city, not the walls and ships without them.’”

-Ingrid Bock, 2015