Purchase
A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan
Murdoch Books
December 1997
On Sale: December 1, 1997
320 pages ISBN: 1885254008 EAN: 9781885254009 Hardcover
Add to Wish List
Non-Fiction
Since 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.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
|