Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for ManhattanSince its original publication in 1978, Delirious New York has attained mythic status. Back in print in a newly designed edition, this influential cultural, architectural, and social history of New York is even more popular, selling out its first printing on publication. Rem Koolhaas's celebration and analysis of New York depicts the city as a metaphor for the incredible variety of human behavior. At the end of the nineteenth century, population, information, and technology explosions made Manhattan a laboratory for the invention and testing of a metropolitan lifestyle -- "the culture of congestion" -- and its architecture. "Manhattan," he writes, "is the 20th century's Rosetta Stone . . . occupied by architectural mutations (Central Park, the Skyscraper), utopian fragments (Rockefeller Center, the U.N. Building), and irrational phenomena (Radio City Music Hall)." Koolhaas interprets and reinterprets the dynamic relationship between architecture and culture in a number of telling episodes of New York's history, including the imposition of the Manhattan grid, the creation of Coney Island, and the development of the skyscraper. Delirious New York is also packed with intriguing and fun facts and illustrated with witty watercolors and quirky archival drawings, photographs, postcards, and maps. The spirit of this visionary investigation of Manhattan equals the energy of the city itself. |
Contents
Introduction | 1826 |
The Technology of the Fantastic | |
The Skyscraper Theorists | |
The WaldorfAstoria Hotel and the Empire | |
The Downtown Athletic Club | |
The Creation of Rockefeller | |
The Fun Never Sets | |
Biuer Dalí and Le Corbusier Conquer New York | |
A Fictional Conclusion | |
Notes | |
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Common terms and phrases
1916 Zoning Law accommodation activity American arcades architectural artificial Astor beauty Beaux-Arts become block bridges building Cartesian City Music Hall City of Towers colossal Coney Island connected Corbett Corbusier Corbusier's Culture of Congestion Dalí's decoration Downtown Athletic Club Dreamland elevator Empire Empire State Building facilities Fantastic feet Fifth Avenue finally garden Globe Tower Grid Harrison Harvey Wiley Corbett Hood's Hotel Hugh Ferriss human inside interior invention Le Corbusier lobby lobotomy Luna Park machine Manhattan masses metaphor Metropolis metropolitan modern mural Opera Palace Paranoid-Critical performance Perisphere plaza pool possible proposal Radiant City Radio City Music Raymond Hood reality realization reinforced Reynolds Rivera Rockefeller Center roof Roxy Salvador Dalí single Skyscraper slab space Square stage Steeplechase story Street structure surface synthetic theater theme theoretical urban Venice visitors Waldorf Waldorf-Astoria wall Wallace Harrison York York's