Searching for OMA NY

18. November 2021

Photo: Spec_Ops.NYC, courtesy of OMA New York

OMA NY: Search Term is the first monograph produced by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) since Content came out in 2004. Focused, as the title indicates, on OMA's New York studio, Search Term uses thousands of images — 5,565 of them, to be precise — to tell the stories behind nearly two-dozen projects.

Covered in a metallic linen paperback and wrapped in clear plastic printed with the table of contents, the outside of the book subtly hints at its interior: 23 projects documented through thousands of images, where projects are found by image numbers rather than page numbers. (Photo: Spec_Ops.NYC, courtesy of OMA New York)

OMA New York's promotional images show the book in their cluttered and crowded office, a setting that defines the aura of OMA (think of the photos that start S,M,L,XL) as much as the blue-foam models and formal innovation of their designs. (Photo: Spec_Ops.NYC, courtesy of OMA New York)

The book in the previous photo is open to Faena District, which opened in Miami Beach in 2016. This image, #2253 in the book, describes how the same project's "two volumes can work together to form a symbiotic relationship." (Photo © OMA)

Milstein Hall is the first project in the book, which is ordered according to eight typological categories: Institutional, Museum, Artist Collaboration, Art Platform, Fashion, Re-Mixed Use, Residential, and Public Realm. (Photo: Spec_Ops.NYC, courtesy of OMA New York)

Image #24: "The box, modern architecture's typology par excellence, typically stands in isolation. In Milstein Hall, it acts as a connector, transforming an ad hoc cluster of buildings into a continuous space with the scale to facilitate collaboration." (Photo © OMA)

The photo at the top of the article — the selfie backdrop from the Rizzoli event — illustrates the rhythm of the book, in which each project starts with some full-bleed photos and is followed by hundreds of thumbnail images. (Photo: Spec_Ops.NYC, courtesy of OMA New York)

Image #826: The final resin model for Pierre Lassonde Pavilion (previous photo), the addition to the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec (MNBAQ), completed in 2016. (Photo © OMA)

The storytelling throughout the book is visual, told through captions accompanying the many small images that fill the pages; reading the captions in the numbered order of the images reveals the process behind the research, design, and realization of the projects. (Photo: Spec_Ops.NYC, courtesy of OMA New York)

Image #3890: "Farming the building," the former United States Postal Service terminal in Houston that OMA New York is transforming into POST Houston/Live Nation. (Photo © OMA)

23 East 22nd Street comes late in the book, in the Residential section. (Photo: Spec_Ops.NYC, courtesy of OMA New York)

The study models for 23 East 22nd Street were exhibited at the Center for Architecture in 2009. (Photo © OMA)

Although the staggered tower on East 22nd Street — here seen from the Met Life clock tower in image #4215 — never happened, one decade later OMA New York finally realized a residential building in Manhattan, just one block away, at 121 East 22nd Street. (Visualization: OMA and Luxigon)

OMA NY: Search Term ends with a list of search terms: words and phrases that suitably describe the research and design process of OMA's New York studio. (Photo: Spec_Ops.NYC, courtesy of OMA New York)

A term such as Stress, for instance, shows engineering diagrams illustrating how gravity affects cantilevered forms, but also the stress of building models, presenting to clients, and other aspects of working at OMA New York. (Photo: Spec_Ops.NYC, courtesy of OMA New York)