OMA DV Journal 1999 -2004

In 1999, Sony released the legendary Handycam DCR-PC100. When my former boss, Rem Koolhaas, suggested I keep a journal while working at OMA, I went out and bought one. I wasn’t much of a writer; instead, I wanted a visual version of the cassette tape recorders I saw figures like Ingrid Sischy and Hans Ulrich Obrist use during their frequent visits to OMA.

I began filming Rem—even during intense moments. He liked it, and often asked me to travel with him to work and film. It was an iconic era for the office: we were working on the Porto concert hall and Seattle Public Library competitions, launching the Prada projects, and beginning our first work in China with CCTV. We founded AMO, made the “Content” exhibition at neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, and worked on “The Image of Europe”. Somehow, I managed to work on almost every project in the office while filming. In the decade before the iPhone, this setup was highly unusual.

When we proposed embedding screens into the new Prada stores, this filming morphed into something new: content creation. Rem called it “Prada tourism.” Filming became part of the work, and eventually, the work itself.

When I moved to Los Angeles in 2006, I brought a box of 100 of these early tapes and handed them to Rem’s friend from his early film career, filmmaker René Daalder, for edits. Following his passing in 2019, his wife, Bianca, returned them to me. Joakim Dahlqvist—my OMA coworker at the time and best friend ever since—digitized the videos and designed the format for both the website and the Instagram page.

This archive and its excerpts are open for anyone to use. However, if you worked at OMA, or collaborated as a client or consultant on any of these projects, we want to hear from you. Please share your contact information so we can build an “OMAlumni” network.

— Jens Hommert, Los Angeles, 2026