The coronavirus pandemic has helped encourage a return to regional architectural styles, according to OMA partner Reinier de Graaf.
The Dutch architect said Covid-related travel restrictions have hastened the demise of "indiscriminate international architecture" designed by globe-trotting starchitects.
"I think there might be an increasing localism again emerging in architecture," de Graaf said. "Maybe a form of regionalism is emerging in architecture and architects generally working more locally."
Above: Reinier de Graaf. Top: OMA's international projects include Prince Plaza in Shenzhen, China
De Graaf made the comments in a live Dezeen talk last week held as part of the Architecture Matters conference.
In the talk, de Graaf looked back over the last three decades. As globalisation took off, the period saw a handful of starchitects including OMA founder Rem Koolhaas designing buildings around the world. "The pandemic has essentially accelerated a number of things which were happening anyway," said de Graaf.
"Our firm really grew big after 1991 after the Berlin Wall fell and then the Soviet Union collapsed."
No longer self-evident that architects can travel indiscriminately
Koolhaas, along with fellow jet-setting architects including Norman Foster, Jean Nouvel, Zaha Hadid and Frank Gehry, became feted around the world.
"The world in the 90s and early zeroes looked like it was going to be this very large, entrepreneuria...