Background: Remment Lucas "Rem" Koolhaas (Dutch pronunciation: [rem ko:lha:s]; born 17 November 1944) is a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist and Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. Koolhaas studied at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London and at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Koolhaas is the founding partner of OMA, and of its research-oriented counterpart AMO based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. In 2005, he co-founded Volume Magazine together with Mark Wigley and Ole Bouman.
Context: Koolhaas's next landmark publications were a product of his position as professor at Harvard University, in the Design school's "Project on the City"; firstly the 720-page Mutations, followed by The Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping (2002) and The Great Leap Forward (2002). All three books involved Koolhaas's students analysing what others would regard as "non-cities", sprawling conglomerates such as Lagos in Nigeria, west Africa, which the authors argue are highly functional despite a lack of infrastructure. The authors also examine the influence of shopping habits and the recent rapid growth of cities in China. Critics of the books have criticised Koolhaas for being cynical - as if Western capitalism and globalization demolish all cultural identity - highlighted in the notion expounded in the books that "In the end, there will be little else for us to do but shop". However, such cynicism can alternatively be read as a "realism" about the transformation of cultural life, where airports and even museums (due to finance problems) rely just as much on operating gift shops. When it comes to transforming these observations into practice, Koolhaas mobilizes what he regards as the omnipotent forces of urbanism into unique design forms and connections organised along the lines of present-day society. Koolhaas continuously incorporates his observations of the contemporary city within his design activities: calling such a condition the 'culture of congestion'. Again, shopping is examined for "intellectual comfort", whilst the unregulated taste and densification of Chinese cities is analysed according to "performance", a criterion involving variables with debatable credibility: density, newness, shape, size, money etc. For example, in his design for the new CCTV headquarters in Beijing (2009), Koolhaas did not opt for the stereotypical skyscraper, often used to symbolise and landmark such government enterprises, but instead designed a series of volumes which not only tie together the numerous departments onto the nebulous site, but also introduced routes (again, the concept of cross-programming) for the general public through the site, allowing them some degree of access to the production procedure. Through his ruthlessly raw approach, Koolhaas hopes to extract the architect from the anxiety of a dead profession and resurrect a contemporary interpretation of the sublime, however fleeting it may be. In 2003, Content, a 544-page magazine-style book designed by &&& Creative and published by Koolhaas, gives an overview of the last decade of OMA projects including his designs for the Prada shops, the Seattle Public Library, a plan to save Cambridge from Harvard by rechanneling the Charles River, Lagos' future as Earth's third-biggest city, as well as interviews with Martha Stewart and Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown.
Question: Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
Answer: Koolhaas mobilizes what he regards as the omnipotent forces of urbanism into unique design forms

Background: Lehrer was born in 1928 to a Jewish family and grew up in Manhattan's Upper East Side. Although he was raised Jewish, Lehrer became an agnostic. He began studying classical piano at the age of seven, but was more interested in the popular music of the age. Eventually, his mother also sent him to a popular-music piano teacher.
Context: Lehrer earned his Bachelor of Arts in mathematics (magna cum laude) from Harvard University in 1946. He received his MA degree the next year, and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He taught classes at MIT, Harvard, Wellesley, and the University of California, Santa Cruz. He remained in Harvard's doctoral program for several years, taking time out for his musical career and to work as a researcher at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. He was drafted into the U.S. Army from 1955 to 1957, working at the National Security Agency(NSA). (Lehrer has stated that he invented the Jell-O Shot during this time, as a means of circumventing liquor restrictions.) These experiences became fodder for songs, e.g., "The Wild West Is Where I Want to Be" and "It Makes a Fellow Proud to Be a Soldier". Interestingly, it was many years before Lehrer publicly revealed having been assigned to the NSA, since the mere 'fact-of' its existence was classified at the time: this left him in the interesting position of implicitly using nuclear weapons work as as cover story for something more sensitive. Despite holding a master's degree in an era when American conscripts often lacked a high school diploma, Lehrer served as an enlisted soldier, achieving the rank of Specialist Third Class (later retitled "Specialist-4" and currently "Specialist"), which he described as being a "corporal without portfolio." In 1960, Lehrer returned to full-time studies at Harvard, but in 1965 gave up on his mathematical dissertation about the subject of modes in statistics, after working on it intermittently for 15 years. From 1962, he taught in the political science department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In 1972, he joined the faculty of the University of California, Santa Cruz, teaching an introductory course entitled "The Nature of Mathematics" to liberal arts majors--"Math for Tenors", according to Lehrer. He also taught a class in musical theater. He occasionally performed songs in his lectures, primarily those relating to the topic. In 2001, Lehrer taught his last mathematics class (on the topic of infinity) and retired from academia. He has remained in the area, and in 2003 said he still "hangs out" around the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Question: What did he study at Harvard?
Answer:
mathematical dissertation about the subject of modes in statistics,