Koolhaas, Rem. Delirious New York.
New Edition. New York: The Monacelli Press, 1994. Print.
Philosophers and philologist should be concerned in the first place with poetic metaphysics; that is the science that looks for proof not in the external world, but in the very modifications of the mind that mediates on it. Since the world of nations is made by men, it is inside their minds that principles should be sought.1 So begins a retroactive manifesto of Manhattan’s architecture as a religion for the twentieth century urban dweller. The year is 1978 and Rem Koolhaas has recently transitioned from the world of writing screenplays and journal articles into one of built environments and a public audience; he has entered the world of architecture. It is with Delirious New York that Koolhaas begins to celebrate the theatrics of Manhattan without chapters or literary structure but rather a linear organization of the climactic acts of architectural history, this document reads more like a script than a work of non-fiction. Mildly egocentric and slightly energized by a “culture of congestion” 2, Koolhaas is quick to declare himself the ghostwriter of Manhattan and it is this autobiographical approach that clearly fuels the richness of his research and analysis in his development of explaining the Manhattanism.
This review of aims to breakdown the first three acts of Delirious New York, from the vantage point of a student of architectural design and theory, and reinforce this manifesto as a pivotal piece of published literature in the career of architectural studies.
ACT ONE: INTRODUCTION
Manhattan is “a mountain range of evidence without manifesto” 3 in the eyes of Rem Koolhaas when he describes the years between 1890 and 1940 as an age of the machine where a new metropolis has become a large scale factory for social experiment, shameless architecture and man made experience. It is here where Koolhaas sets the stage for his first architectural drama and his audience can begin to build their own abstract ideas of the story of Manhattan’s build up into an urban catalogue of architectural superiority. In declaring the city’s paradigm of density and congestion as a strength of urbanity, Rem Koolhaas begins to bring more characters into his play on theory and ecstasy as found in the development of Manhattan’s architectural ambitions.
ACT TWO: PREHISTORY
A glimpse at the early scenes of what will become the world’s most influential architectural experiment, Manhattan’s strength originates in a few simple gestures of development. First, Koolhaas explains how Manhattan as the idea of a new city begins to spread through very vague stories and illustrations that point more towards an act of science fiction than an effort to make a functional urban system, at least compared to any existing (European) system. Such provocative stories of a new city are later proven to be very successful for New York in marketing its real estate for development. Secondly, the introduction of a grid as the only parameter of development in this new city is described as an idea so simple that even the most unsophisticated mind could become interested in building within a city that is free of boundary and makes no claims towards a manifesto or building cannon. What is refinement one moment will be barbarism the next. Therefore, the performance can never end or even progress in the conventional sense of dramatic plotting; it can only be the cyclic restatement of a single theme: creation and destruction irrevocably interlocked, endlessly reenacted.4 It is through this language that Koolhaas has persuaded me to believe that Manhattan was the spark that ignited the public’s frustrations with outdated (European) city planning and building typologies. For me this is the most important moment of the play as the director is about to summarize the entirety of his work with one simple graphic, an advertisement for New York’s first World’s Fair. The graphic depicts a needle and a globe as symbols of opposite architectural form working together to strengthen each other as competitors in the same game. The idea of coexistence of form fuels each archetype in attempting to achieve a equal to or greater than value of the other. This simple diagram can be used to explain the success of Manhattan, as it exists still today; an architectural playground populated with buildings that each make an effort to exceed the success of its predecessors.
ACT THREE: Coney Island: The Technology of the Fantastic
Declaring the genius of Coney Island as a formless theoretical playground, Koolhaas shines light on the important ways in which Manhattan could not be what it is today without the carnivalesque5 social experiments that filled the cultural voids of early twentieth century urbanization in the U.S. The strategies and mechanisms that later shape Manhattan are tested in the laboratory of Coney Island before they finally leap towards the larger island.6 Rem Koolhaas very effectively constructs his retroactive manifesto to the Manhattanism in a way that builds up and breaks down his argument regarding the success the city as if it were a piece of installation artwork; starting from the basic ideas, moving through the realities of design in response to cultural desires and landing on a statement about the historical facts. Where Koolhaas gains momentum is in the resurrection of a forgotten history. By addressing Coney Island as the “clitoral appendage” 7 of Manhattan, Delirious New York presents a point of view that is hardly ever addressed in the historical narrative of New York’s development. As it is revealed by Koolhaas, Coney Island, Luna Park and Dreamland are experimental precursors to the current tower city of endless cultural blending, sexual exploration and social expansion that is New York City. This rhetorical tactic is effective for Koolhaas in gaining the interest and trust of his audience through establishing a literary structure similar to that of an architectural grid, clear and logical. In the end of the third act, the thought provoking activities that occured at Coney Island are proven to have laid the foundation for the rest of Koolhaas’ argument. Rem Koolhaas is either a research genius or a luck stricken journalist-screenwriter-architect, who has created a piece of literature that is still refreshing to new architects and the profession as a whole over thirty after its original publication date. Rem Koolhaas has not only constructed a design declaration, he has redefined the greatest city in the world for what it truly is, not what it wants to be projected to be.
2. 1. Giambattista, Vico. Principles of a New Science,(1759)
2. 2. Koolhaas, Rem. Delirious New York. New Edition. p. 10
3. 3. Koolhaas, Rem. Delirious New York. New Edition. p. 9
4. 4. Koolhaas, Rem. Delirious New York. New Edition. p. 15
5. 5. Bakhtin, Mikhail (1941). Rabelais and his world. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
6. 6. Koolhaas, Rem. Delirious New York. New Edition. p. 30
7. 7. Koolhaas, Rem. Delirious New York. New Edition. p. 30
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