It's possible that Koolhaas will soon join the many architects who, thanks to smaller budgets and the end of the booming 1990s, have shrunk from excess in the last couple of years. (See my piece for Slate on the new architecture of modesty here.) In Koolhaas' particular case, though, such a transformation seems unlikely: He's a showman, architecturally and intellectually, who clearly enjoys a big stage. That will make it tough for him to move away from projects like this unbuilt skyscraper he designed for Seoul in 1996; indeed, the days when Koolhaas' ideas were grander than his buildings seem long gone. It seems more likely that in the coming years we'll see him spending more time in China and other quickly developing nations, where architectural spectacle thrives and clients demand bold, signature buildings—and where the Koolhaas legend, as ever fed most energetically by the architect himself, can continue to grow.