I'am glad it’s all over. This joint venture between Rem and Jacques was doomed from the start.

— You mean to say you were hoping it would fail. Mixing fire and water never appealed to you.

— On the contrary! Rem thought that many were waiting to be disappointed, but some of us simply doubted a ship could sail with two captains. Architecture may be a choral business, and we may be sick and tired of the signature thing but, at the end of the day, a project needs someone in charge. Of course, there is this utopian strand, from Tatlin’s collective artist to Rockefeller’s design by committee, that tries to dissolve authorship, and look where it has taken us: bureaucratic town planning and corporate architecture. Do you think design by committee is going to produce a new Rockefeller Center at Ground Zero?

— Now you’re being unfair. The cohabitation of Daniel Libeskind and David Childs is not exactly a romantic one, and SOM has been put at the helm, so in any case, there’s a CEO. As you know the collaboration between OMA and H&deM was sparked by mutual admiration; it was no arranged marriage. And the fact that these are the two most influential firms of the past decade made their coming together even more exciting. I only miss a good picture of Rem and Jacques for the record, like the one taken of Le Corbusier and Mies at the Weissenhof!...[+]