Shohei Shigematsu

After leading the competition team that won the Beijing CCTV building project and then working in the Middle East, Sho Shigematsu turned his focus on OMA’s New York office, looking to make it his own and building it into far more than just a Rotterdam outpost

Sho Shigematsu, OMA associate and director of the New York office. Image: Geordie Wood

Blueprint: Is the NY office different from Rotterdam? What direction have you taken it in?

SS: It is definitely different now. I entered OMA in 1998 at the height of Rem’s popularity in the United States so he got the Universal Headquarters [unbuilt], Seattle [Central Library, 2004], IIT [McCormick Tribune Campus Center, 2003], Whitney [museum extension, unbuilt], LACMA [extension unbuilt], yada, yada, yada… it was the booming moment. Then 9/11 happened and the regime changed and we lost a lot of projects, so suddenly our focus switched to China and I led the competition to win the CCTV building. I was working on Chinese projects for four years almost living in China, then it was the Middle East, but I became tired of chasing booming countries.

The iconic CCTV building in Beijing, for which Shigematsu led the competition entry team. Image : Iwan Baan

In China and the Middle East it can be a very authoritarian type of client and they can be very detached from the discussions. At that time nobody was really interested in the USA and there was this small project - the Cornell University extension - so I told Rem I’d like to do it. This was right after the previous New York director left, so I took over the NY office with just five people, just working on Cornell. That was 2006. The office was doing well for a while and then 2008 hit and there was no work whatsoever. There was also no real interest in the USA from other partners, even Rem, so I started to develop my own network.

The Cornell University building, the starting point for Shigematsu in the New York office

As an outpost, of course you want to continue the culture of OMA, but at the same time, unless you start to promote a new direction, you will not get recognised - you will just be seen as Rem’s extension. So it’s taken 10 years but finally it’s having an impact back in Rotterdam. Rotterdam has six partners including Rem, but the revenue I am making with the New York office is coming closer and also the number of people is coming closer [around 70 in New York]. I’m not competing with them, but I’m happy that I can also show the diversity of OMA as an organisation.

Blueprint: So what have you done differently in New York?

SS: The way I developed the culture of OMA New York was to really focus on the design and winning the competitions. Since this project [Pierre Lassonde Pavilion], since 2010, we have won 17 competitions. Learning from Rem, I knew it was not easy to create something outstanding, so I have put a lot of effort into creating a design- focused culture. Finally clients are recognising me as an individual and it is an interesting shift. Now we are on the starting line and I would like to develop our own direction much further. OMA’s strength has been its style of thinking.

No matter what the outcome is formally, I am sure there is this certain level of consistency with OMA projects. It denies a prescribed style, but sharing a way of thinking creates a similar process even if the form is quite different. So I think it is very interesting that we can deliver very different specific buildings in specific contexts. I’m not deliberately trying to develop a different language to Rotterdam per se; I just believe in the specificity of each project and want to deliver something very specific for that site, condition and client.