The book is set up according to the demands of Bigness. In over 1300 pages S,M,L,XL documents the work of O.M.A. but it does not want to yield to the standard strategy of 'life and work of architect X'. A multitude of frameworks serves to present the ideas that count for O.M.A. Foremost is the title of the book itself - definitely a working title - which orders the projects and texts on the basis of their scale: Small, Medium, Large, and Extra Large. Second is the alphabet, which displays a series of short comments, ideas, quotes, and notions that are remarkable enough to put in the book. Third is the chronology offered at the end of the book which lists the projects as they are executed in time. Fourth is the separation between projects and texts. Fifth is the dense mixture of images and typography.

As is argued in the underpinnings of 'Bigness' (essay 494-517), 'old' architectural principles (composition, scale, proportion, detail) no longer apply when a building acquires Bigness. Therefore it is surprising to note that the structure for ordering S,M,L,XL is inherently architectural. Smal, medium, large, and extra large acknowledge the concept of level of scale, which, although its limits are not set sharply, makes a rather clear division into matters of architecture, urbanism, size, complexity, and way of treatment.

O.M.A. has developed a very specific approach towards urbanism and architecture. Instead of denial of complexity, lack of control, opposition, contradiction, and bigness, they embrace these conditions and declare them as the starting point for their projects. The urban context specifically, they state, no longer can be controlled in the 'classical' manner of Modernism. What counts is a sensitivity to the issues that are denied existence: the tabula rasa, the void, the grid, and contingency. These issues serve as the structural means to accommodate what cannot be controlled. They are the new instruments of urbanism and architecture.

S,M,L,XL separates between projects and texts. Each project is considered an instance, quite separate from the others, unless specified explicitly in the introductory texts which explain something of the context. The texts are considered as instances as well, quite isolated from the projects, unless... etc. The comments and the structure of the book provide only the tiniest explanatory structure and demonstration of the link between ideas and practice.

Comments

• Alphabet: The alphabet launches a series of platitudes that could not otherwise be reasonably inserted in the texts [versus xviii-1302]
• Assembly: The book is assembled, not written; therefore it is not a novel about architecture [versus 1348]
• Beauty: Of the two positions on beauty: (1) a principle (geometry, balance, composition, etc.) that will render good buildings, and (2) a property emerging from a good solution, S,M,L,XL demonstrates position (2)
• Chronology: The chronology explains the contents of the book (how did they do it?)
• Concept: A pervading use of vocabulary does not necessarily indicate a clear set of concepts
• Gay science: The call for urbanism to lighten up is legitimate, however not because it is not responsible [versus 971, 829] but because it offers new possibilities
• Globalization 1: Rem Koolhaas shits his pants for Richard Meier; whereas he is one of his most alike collegues [versus 365]
• Globalization 2: The Byzantium clash demonstrates they are both picked for their style not their architecture [354-361]
• Level: The use of levels of scale offers a good structure for ordering the book
• Numbers: The careful numbering of the pages demonstrates the necessity for some control
• Serious: The weight and production time of S,M,L,XL contradict its supposed lightness [versus 1053]
• Understanding: Coherence imposed on an architect's work is the result of reflection; this is lacking in the book [versus xix]
• Weight: The measure of discussion per project indicates its relative weight; therefore the book is not a reference work
• Wrong: Two billion people can be wrong [versus 1087]

What is included

1. House for two friends | Dutch section (transparency paradigm)
2. Nexus world housing | 13,000 Points (housing in waves)
3. Renovation of hotel Furka Blick | Worth a detour (mountain intermezzo)
4. Villa Dall'Ava | Obstacles (giraffe house)
5. Video bus stop | Only 90 degrees please (bus intermezzo)

M

1. Renovation of a Panopticon prison | Revision (housing the Unvoluntary Prisoners of Architecture)
2. Housing Kochstrasse/Friedrichstrasse | Shipwrecked (Berlin along the wall; can it work? 1)
3. Extension of the Dutch parliament | Final push (which ism to house Parlianism?)
4. Netherlands Dance Theater | Cadavre Exquis (7 year choreography)
5. Housing, offices, shops | Byzantium (the rites of architecture)
6. Biocenter | Vanishing act (Garden centers of tomorrow)
7. Hotel and convention center | Islam after Einstein (grid-ing the desert)
8. Architecture Museum, Museum Park, Kunsthal I | New Rotterdam (opus interuptus)
9. Kunsthal II | Life in the Box? (the program-free program)
10. Project for an office city | Neue Sachlichkeit (the monofunctional city-fragment)

L

1. Boompjes towerslab | Soft substance, harsh town (implementing Delirious Rotterdam)
2. The Hague city hall | Indeterminate specificity (no comments)
3. A mini-farce | Dirty realism (plenty of comments)
4. Sea terminal | Working Babel (to withstand nature)
5. Tres Grande Bibliotheque | Strategy of the void (information surface tension)
6. Zentrum fur Kunst und Medientechnologie | Darwinian arena (contingency shock therapy)
7. Congrexpo (Lille Grand Palais) | Organization of appearances (put in an eggshell)
8. 2 Bibliotheques Jussieu | P.S. Unraveling (continuous plane building)

XL

1. Bijlmermeer redevelopment | Las Vegas of the welfare state (Frankenstein thinks itself human born)
2. Parc de la Villette | Congestion without matter (urban strategy for landscaping)
3. Exposition Universelle 1989 | Their new sobriety (provide conditions, not architecture)
4. Ville nouvelle Melun-Senart | Surrender (a study in restrain)
5. Transportation exchange centers for Benelux | Dolphins (an urbanism of transport)
6. Mission Grande Axe | Tabula rasa revisited (the eternal 25 year old aged)
7. Zac Danton office tower | Side show (stack, stack, stack, ..., oops, stack, stack, stack, ...)
8. Euralille: Centre international d'affaires | Quantum leap (the first instance of Extra Large Architecture)
9. Urban design forum | Programmatic lava (filling up the time schedule)

1. AA Final project | Exodus, or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture (architecture as script)
2. Appendix | Delirious New York (book within book)

1. Installation for the 1986 Milan Triennale | Less is more (a recollection)
2. Theory | The house that made Mies (pondering the historians enigma)
3. Poem | Learning Japanese (culture shock challenge)
4. Text | Imagining Nothingness (the non-devoid void)
5. Text | The Terrifying Beauty of the Twentieth Century (how does it work? 1)

M

1. The Berlin wall as architecture | Field trip: (A)A memoir (Berlin diary; how does it work? 2)
2. Meditation, Morgan Bank | Typical plan (tradition through the type vs typical tradition)
3. Text | Globalization (do your thing everywhere)

L

1. Manifesto | Bigness, or the problem of Large (underpinning the program of L)
2. Speculations on structure and services, from the notebook of Cecil Balmond | Last apples (the tectonics of a virtual library)
3. Bedtime story | Palace of the Soviets (wet dream)

XL

1. Dream | The white sheet (the mess urbanists make)
2. Journalism | Atlanta (John Portman and images of things to come)
3. Point city, south city, project for redesigning Holland | Unlearning Holland (a study in density)
4. Text | Elegy for the vacant lot (Downtown Athletic Club reconsidered)
5. Text | What ever happened to urbanism? (urbanism is dead, hail the new urbanism)
6. Reconstruction | Singapore songlines - thirty years of tabula rasa (Singapore; how does it work? 3)
7. Guide | The generic city (common properties of all cities now and extrapolated)

If... then

• If you are generally interested in the work of O.M.A. then S,M,L,XL is a good book
• If you want detailed knowledge on all the projects then S,M,L,XL is incomplete
• If you want to understand the work of O.M.A. then S,M,L,XL does not offer an explicit explanation
• If you want a fair sample of writings by O.M.A. then S,M,L,XL is a good reference book
• If you want to see a new approach towards books on architecture then S,M,L,XL states a remarkable effort
• If you want to be inspired by the O.M.A. attitude then S,M,L,XL is definitely the place to start