Managing an architecture icon: what's next for OMA?

In July 2026, OMA appointed three new partners: Marianne Anthonissen, Kaveh Dabiri, and Samir Bantal. There is no doubt that with the renowned architecture firm expanding its leadership and experiencing exponential growth in the past two decades, there's a distinct ongoing transition phase unfolding at the forefront of its global operations.

Discussing OMA's evolution with its co-managing partners

We caught up with Anthonissen and existing OMA executive leader David Gianotten, who are now sharing the organisational and financial management, business strategy and global growth roles as the Dutch studio's joint managing partners. We discussed OMA's evolution – where the ground-breaking practice stands now and how it sees its future.

W*: Welcome, both. Would you like to introduce yourselves and your roles at OMA?

Marianne Anthonissen: I have been with OMA since 2016. I kept the same title up until very recently, but my role evolved quite a bit over the years. I started as the chef de bureau, where my main focus initially was to do the staffing of projects. I studied architecture in South Africa at the University of Cape Town, and then I also practised as an architect in South Africa for ten years before moving to the Netherlands. My focus is on people operations, working very closely with the architects and our support staff on how we organise things.

David Gianotten: My trajectory is very different. I started at OMA in 2009. Before that time, I had my own practice together with Bjarne Mastenbroek, called SeArch, in Amsterdam. We collaborated with Rem Koolhaas on a project, and he asked me to join OMA to take care of his operations, not only from a management side but also from a design perspective. At the time, OMA's managing partner didn't have an architectural background. When he left, I was asked by the partnership to take over the management temporarily because, apart from my architectural degree, I also have a degree in management. This soon became permanent.

I have done that for 11 years, and it recently became apparent that we have grown and also needed more input from the younger generation. It sometimes felt quite lonely to manage such a big group of people alone.

W*: How are you dividing the role between you two?

David Gianotten: I have worked very closely with Marianne for years now, and we have an established relationship. We also see that our strengths are very complementary and I would say almost overlapping, but each having our own focus. I look very much at the efficiency of the office and also the financial side of things, so let's say the management of the health of the office. Marianne really looks at the people and how the office culture could evolve.

W*: Marianne, tell me about your perspective. And also, how important do you think it is for the managing partner to also be an architect?

Marianne Anthonissen: What is very often happening in architectural practices is that architects also manage without having formal management training. So, they learn on the job. It's been surprisingly important in the role of management and organisation to have this background in architecture. It's interesting how the skills that you gain as an architect, where you're able to zoom in and out of a different scale, taking the bigger picture view and also having to take into consideration the context, the regulations, all of that, translate quite well into how you run a business. The layers and the topics are quite different, but it's been an interesting experience to see how this feeds into management.

W*: How has the business changed since you first joined OMA?

David Gianotten: Its needs have changed significantly because when I joined, I was employee number 59. We grew very rapidly in the next seven years to almost 280 and beyond. At the same time, we started working from different geographic locations. First, we only had Rotterdam and New York; then Asia came, the Middle East and Australia. So the management system had to be much more elaborate. It had to be controllable but flexible at the same time. It went from unorganised creative chaos to organised creative chaos, and I say that on purpose because I think the chaos in a company like ours means you don't restrict it, because then you become corporate.

Marianne Anthonissen: Obviously, OMA is a company that's been around for a long time, and I think one of the things that's probably remained consistent is that we respond critically to the broader environment in which we work. It's the key to how we move forward, looking at how the world is changing, as well as new technologies and new generations. How do we respond, and how do we work with what's happening in the world? How has that affected people, and what are their expectations from a work environment? All this affects how we organise ourselves.

W*: Was OMA always destined to grow? It's a firm that has always conceptually tackled the large-scale, urban growth and density. And are you planning to grow more?

David Gianotten: Although when things were thought like that [conceptually], the practice was not that big. But then no, we never thought about a number. We thought about an investment in the sense of intellectual investment. Since I joined the partnership level in the 2010s, numbers have been pretty stable, which was a conscious management decision because we want the partners involved in the creative work and growing further would make it simply almost impossible. Also, the aim is to stay with the 10 partners that we have.

We see the office not only as a project but also as a testing ground. You have ideas, you have strategies, but if the office doesn't follow, then the strategy becomes void. For us, our people are the value. Those brains coming together as one big brain – that's the office.

W*: Of course, the human element is paramount. Marianne, do you find that as attitudes to work change, maybe people's motivation also changes?

Marianne Anthonissen: Architecture is a creative endeavour, and people who work here generally are doing something they're extremely passionate about. Things change in how people balance their time, how people organise the working day and how we try and make sure there's a balance because the working culture - generally, not just in our office - has changed, and that's something that you have to respond to.

David Gianotten: We should also not forget that OMA is in an enormously luxurious position. Our name attracts people from all around the world, and we can select the best. That also means bringing in a lot of potential tension and potential competitiveness that need to be managed in the right direction. It is about finding the right balance.

W*: What lies in OMA's future? What is on your agenda, and what do you hope to achieve in the next five to ten years from now?

David Gianotten: We have always said there's only one thing we want to stay away from, and that is addiction in the negative sense of the word. We don't want to create projects that stimulate people in the wrong direction, such as casinos. We don't work in certain countries, but we always listen first to the question, no matter what the political system is, and we see how we can contribute to the dialogue. We are very proud of the fact that we can do all different typologies, and we want to do them in all sorts of different contexts. That is also how we grow our portfolio. We are now exploring more growth in the South. We constantly try to find a balance between what we already know and what we don't know yet. A good balance is: 40% exploration, 60% things we can immediately position and be relevant.

Marianne Anthonissen: I am looking forward to also building on the legacy of the company and building on what we've achieved up to now. So, this thing that we work globally, we're very diverse also culturally. We want to continue to expand on a basis that we already have; there's no giant identity shift here.

David Gianotten: I want to close by adding that I am so excited about my collaboration with Marianne on the OMA management; not because of my own eagerness to be able to share, but also because I think Marianne has a very bright mind that can add something really valuable and bring new energy to the company. For me, it is great to look forward to that energy. I hope you have felt that enthusiasm in my answers. This is a very key moment for the firm.

Marianne Anthonissen: I agree.

W*: Indeed, I have! Thank you, both.

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