EU Flag Designed by Architect

Hurrah! We're saved! The EU are planning to ditch the current flag (a circlet of gold stars on a blue background) in favour of some kind of stripey thing containing all the colours of all EU member flags designed by a Dutch architect, Rem Koolhaas. Onward and upward to those broad, sunlit uplands!

Some feedback has already been generated. Jay Merrick, the Indescribablypretentious's 'architecture correspondent' had this to say:

Koolhaas' ideas are like his architecture. They veer in smooth mental synchromesh from position to position, from material to material, and always from the static to the fractured and manoeuvrable.

[...]

For Koolhaas, there are no pesky boundaries between things, be they ideas or physical structures. His intellect has the dual-cyclone suction of a Dyson Motorhead vacuum cleaner, and it's this huge appetite for the mysterious connective tissues of aesthetics and information that sets him apart.


Let a thousand faux-masturbatory hand gestures bloom!

The critics, as usual, are replete with trenchant observations:

The problem with the stripes is they do not really mean anything. They might also be criticised by some people because they are reminiscent of rainbow flags associated with gay movements [?!?].

[...]

[Ben] Wolstenholme added that the stripes were more impressive as they were a strong statement of the multicultural identities in the European Union, but they would be a "nightmare to implement" because the design would be too complex.

[...]

[Stephen Bayley] said Koolhaas's design was confident, modern and easily adaptable.

However he added he was less happy about the stars, which he said might make a European politician look as if he was "about to pull rabbits out of a hat or saw a woman in half."


Or pulling $45 million for Arafat out of a hat and sawing their own credibility in half, if you want to be picky. A joke flag for a joke entity? Only time will tell...