The Architect of a Different Kind of Organization

The polite applause petered out as Joshua Prince-Ramus stepped onto the stage at the Dallas Museum of Art. The 35-year-old architect was there to publicly unveil the schematic designs for the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre, part of a new performing arts center in Dallas. The Wyly is the first building to come entirely out of Prince-Ramus's New York branch of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, or OMA, the think tank/design lab founded by the iconoclastic Dutchman Rem Koolhaas.

With 350 pairs of eyes upon him, and a widely anticipated design to show off, Prince-Ramus might have basked, just for a moment, in the spotlight. But he didn't. "Since I have a captive audience for about an hour, I want to first make a little PR statement about architecture," he began. "Architecture is not created by individuals. The genius sketch . . . is a myth. Architecture is made by a team of committed people who work together, and in fact, success usually has more to do with dumb determination than with genius."

Most of the audience, a mix of architecture students, reporters, and curious theater patrons, probably brushed off the preamble. But for Prince-Ramus, that brief stand on his soapbox had nothing to do with false modesty. Coming from a young partner at a "starchitect" firm -- Koolhaas, like Gehry and Libeskind, belongs to that elite circle of one-name wonders -- the little lecture amounted to a swipe at celebrity-obsessed architectural writers and critics. More to the point, it was a promise to his team that he will tirelessly promote their efforts and accomplishments.

Prince-Ramus is in an excellent position to do so. His first major project, the Seattle Central Library, which opened last summer, is being hailed as a reinvention of the public library -- in the glowing words of then New York Times critic Herbert Muschamp, a "blazing chandelier to swing your dreams upon." The gemlike creation, with a glass exterior roughly cut into facets that reveal the building's inner spaces, is perhaps best known for the "book spiral" -- a ramp that snakes upward for four stories, enfolding all of the library's vast stacks -- allowing them to expand and contract as needed. While the library was designed collectively by Koolhaas, OMA, and the Seattle architecture firm LMN, Prince-Ramus was the hands-on partner who honchoed the effort.

"The Seattle library is one of the best buildings in recent history," proclaims Tina di Carlo, the assistant curator of architecture and design at New York's Museum of Modern Art. "It will probably go down as one of the masterpieces."

Designer as Collaborator

Prince-Ramus wants to do more than create radically innovative buildings. He aims to design a sustainable future for Koolhaas's North American beachhead. In the United States, OMA lost out on four high-profile projects over the past four years, two of which went to rival Renzo Piano. That hurt, considering the firm's short history in the United States -- before the Seattle library, OMA had completed only a small theater and a Prada store in New York, a campus building in Chicago, and two Guggenheim outposts in Las Vegas. Indeed, since OMA was founded 30 years ago, Koolhaas has made his name on his writings as much as his architecture; only recently has the firm finished projects with any frequency. Over the past five years, OMA has completed 12 buildings; it took its first 25 years to grind out the same number of projects.

If Koolhaas's enterprise is to endure in the United States, Prince-Ramus must hang on to innovative architects and collaborative clients. He is trying to foster a work culture where young architects are given due credit for their contributions and are rewarded with steady, stimulating challenges. So far, at least, the formula appears to be working. In addition to the Dallas theater, OMA is crafting an information-sciences building for the California Institute of Technology. It's also negotiating two more projects, one of which is a midpriced hotel chain. Prince-Ramus "is the force behind OMA's success in the U.S.," says Toshiko Mori, who heads the architecture department at the Harvard Design School.

Prince-Ramus might dislike the field's cult of personality, but he makes a strong impression. Tall, with close-cropped hair, icy blue eyes, and thick arms revealing a rower's past (he was a finalist for the 1996 Olympic men's team), he has a quiet intensity about him. Before architecture school at Harvard, he studied philosophy at Yale, and he retains a philosopher's view of the world. He added his wife's name to his when they got married; an e.e. cummings quote is tattooed along the underside of his arm: "Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question."